Virtual Reality has long been considered a springboard for empathy. In his TED talk, Chris Milk refers to virtual reality as an “ultimate empathy machine”. Fernanda Herrera, a Stanford University researcher, suggests that “VR is good for perspective taking”.
She explains:
“We start having body cognition, adopting virtual characteristics into our own; we start thinking of a ‘new self’. Instead of just being told what someone’s life is like, what their struggles are like…now we can struggle with them.”
With VR, she asserts, we can “see things from another person’s point view”.
This is also the hope of a recent collaboration between the Department of Ophthalmology & Visual Sciences at the University of Alberta and KOVR, a division of KO Group. Their coaction has led to “Through the Looking Glass”, a VR experience that simulates what it is like to live with vision loss related to eye disease.
“No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise”. – Mock Turtle
Their partnership began with an effort to secure greater empathy in fundraising and an awareness campaign to highlight the effects of chronic eye disease to regular people. They struck upon the idea to create an immersive VR experience with the theme “Through the Looking Glass.” You can view a video of the actual fundraising / awareness event below.
“What! Never heard of uglifying! – Mock Turtle
Through this initial project, development plans pivoted towards the creation of the Diabetic Retinopathy Module (DRM). According to Michael Bowman, the Chief Marketing Officer of KOVR, “we took a little bit of a ‘scared straight’ approach”. The immersive simulation, based on the potential effects of diabetes, forces the issue of recognizing eye degeneration earlier than is typical.
“Don’t let it get to this. If you value your vision as you have it right now, don’t let this happen”,
explains Bowman. The simulation accomplishes this helpful scheme by immersing the participant in the specific challenges posed by a given pattern of vision loss. Participants are asked to perform food preparation in a kitchen, medication selection in a bathroom, traffic or pedestrian navigation on a road or sidewalk, shopping in a retail setting, or computer use in an office. Each task must be performed at varying levels of visual impairment.
While most immersive content these days aims to drive empathy for the medical practitioner to respect the needs of his/her patient, this simulation is quite different. Its chief purpose is to boost empathy in the patient, to expose patients to what could happen to them if they ignore the warning signs: it’s a type of empathy for your “future self”, if you will.
“Language is worth a thousand pounds a word! – Alice
KOVR brings a strong business perspective to this relationship, so cost avoidance is a chief driver for this effort. According to KOVR,
“In Canada, 68% of patients with Type 2 Diabetes are not scheduling regular eye exams and therefore miss the opportunity for early detection, timely treatment, and prevention of blindness. These patients miss the opportunity for early detection and consequently less invasive, and less expensive, treatment to prevent vision loss”.
Bowman argues that if the simulation can engender an uptick in regular eye exams, given new drug treatments and procedures, “we can keep catastrophic eye conditions at bay”. He calculates: “These efforts could save: 50-60 million dollars in Alberta alone”.
There is also a common danger, when developing immersive content, to end up developing a “one-hit wonder” application. To smartly avoid that problem, KOVR created a VR learning platform, called Stratos, to host a collection of modules, but beginning with their Diabetic Retinopathy Module (DRM). According to Bowman,
“ultimately STRATOS will be the home to other modules for ocular disorders, and lead to module development in a wide range of health-related programs. Our objective is to become a leading platform for e- learning in virtual reality”. Bowman expands: “Others could publish on the platform: and we will monetize that”.
–Len Scrogan
