Monthly Archives: May 2021

Jaskirat Batras style of teaching using virtual reality might revolutionize how engineering courses are taught in classrooms.

Dharmesh Patel/Texas A&M Engineering

For Jaskirat Batra, the desire to pursue teaching was firmly cemented during childhood. As a child of career educators, he was often immersed in the world of classrooms, chalkboards and textbooks.

While deeply inspired by his parents, Batras desire was always to go beyond conventional pedagogy. As a graduate student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at Texas A&M University, he has established a unique style of teaching that might revolutionize how engineering courses are taught in classrooms.

Batra moved to the United States for his bachelors degree in engineering and then went on to obtain a masters degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M. During this time, he was attracted to the materials science program at Texas A&M since it offered an opportunity to expand his academic training into the field of soft polymer material development. Although the transition would mean focusing on the basic science behind materials design, he was excited about adding skills to his academic tool kit.

I thought that it was the perfect place for me to combine my academic training in engineering science and electrical engineering with my research interests in micro and nanofabrication and soft polymers, Batra said. I couldnt wait to jump in and begin my own research project.

Batra began working on his research project, attending classes and taking exams. However, the turning point of his doctoral years came when he was recruited to teach an introductory engineering course to undergraduate students. During this time, he grew increasingly dissatisfied with the standard slides-based method, particularly because slides, which are 2D surfaces, were used to display complex 3D concepts.

I knew there has to be a better way to help students visualize in 3D, Batra said. I found myself digging deep to develop an instructional strategy that would really help my students to learn and enjoy the process while at it.

Batra had an out-of-the-box idea of incorporating virtual reality as a visualization tool for lecture materials. He started to use 3D carboard goggles to monitor student motivation when materials science concepts were being taught. The results of his study, recently published as a part of Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Frontiers in Education Conference, uncovered that when a slides-based lecture was supplemented with virtual reality, the motivation increased in 77% of the students.

We think that virtual reality can play a more important role in classrooms and how we approach teaching STEM courses, he said. Moreover, low-cost, virtual reality cardboard viewers are a feasible and a scalable way to capture students attention.

While juggling teaching and research can be extremely daunting to most students in graduate school, Batra said he might have found himself an ideal solution that integrates these two worlds, and he is deeply committed to this project.

As an academic, I always remember what my parents taught me about the power of a pen in shaping the society, and the influence of a teacher on the future generations of teachers, scientists, engineers, thinkers and policy-makers, Batra said. In addition to being an educator, in the future I would love to have my own research laboratory where I can engage future generations of scientists in making discoveries and solving problems.

Batra has several recognitions to his credit. He has been awarded the Teaching-as-Research Fellowship of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning to conduct his research on the use of virtual reality in materials science education. Further, he has received the 2020 IEEE New Faculty Fellow award for this research.

He has also been awarded a $4,000 Diversity Matters research seed grant to investigate the social learning experiences of underrepresented and first-generation engineering students in online STEM courses. As a graduate student, he initiated the Aggies in Science, Technology and Engineering Policy organization, which offers students a taste of science policy, science communication and leadership.

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Turning Virtual Reality Into A Learning Tool - Texas A&M Today - Texas A&M University Today

With police responses to calls under intense scrutiny following high-profile cases across the country calling their judgment into question, the Sacramento Police Department is using virtual reality as part of its training for officers.Incorporating video simulators with scenarios inspired by real-life experiences in the field, officers will be trained on variety of situations and circumstances."Training cost a lot of money. It takes a lot of time to set up. It takes space and you need different environments to do that," said Lt. Zachary Bales who heads the department's virtual training. "Here in the virtual world, you can literally offer a scenario, build a scenario and put that officer in that scenario." Just like real life, the officers have to make split-second decisions that could affect not only the lives of people in the community but their own as well. Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn said the training will help his officers and keep people safe."This is just one small piece of a very large effort that makes some of those experiences easier to provide to our officers in a setting that's easier to access, safe, and doesn't require a ton of role players," Hahn said. The system is capable of 3D scanning any environment, so here in Sacramento, we could have the Golden 1 Center 3D-scanned and we can have officers virtually respond." Journalists were invited to experience the 3D simulator, including Genoa Barrow with the Sacramento Observer."Anything, that I think can prevent some of these incidents that have been happening, the better off for new officers and for veteran officers I think, should probably go through this training," Barrow said.The technology also allows instructors to replay the virtual scenarios so other officers can see what worked and what didn't, and then learn from those experiences.

With police responses to calls under intense scrutiny following high-profile cases across the country calling their judgment into question, the Sacramento Police Department is using virtual reality as part of its training for officers.

Incorporating video simulators with scenarios inspired by real-life experiences in the field, officers will be trained on variety of situations and circumstances.

"Training cost a lot of money. It takes a lot of time to set up. It takes space and you need different environments to do that," said Lt. Zachary Bales who heads the department's virtual training. "Here in the virtual world, you can literally offer a scenario, build a scenario and put that officer in that scenario."

Just like real life, the officers have to make split-second decisions that could affect not only the lives of people in the community but their own as well.

Sacramento Police Chief Daniel Hahn said the training will help his officers and keep people safe.

"This is just one small piece of a very large effort that makes some of those experiences easier to provide to our officers in a setting that's easier to access, safe, and doesn't require a ton of role players," Hahn said. The system is capable of 3D scanning any environment, so here in Sacramento, we could have the Golden 1 Center 3D-scanned and we can have officers virtually respond."

Journalists were invited to experience the 3D simulator, including Genoa Barrow with the Sacramento Observer.

"Anything, that I think can prevent some of these incidents that have been happening, the better off for new officers and for veteran officers I think, should probably go through this training," Barrow said.

The technology also allows instructors to replay the virtual scenarios so other officers can see what worked and what didn't, and then learn from those experiences.

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Article Sacramento police officers to use virtual reality in training - KCRA Sacramento

A paediatric oncology patient using one of KindVRs virtual reality headsets. Image Credit: KindVR

Simon Robertson, a former video game developer, first tried on a virtual reality (VR) headset back in 2012 and immediately started thinking about how the technology could be applied to help people.

That night, he fell into a research rabbit hole where he discovered the work of Dr Hunter Hoffman, one of the originators of a new technique using immersive VR for pain control.

Hoffman was able to show that burn patients, while having their wound dressings changed, were reporting significant pain reduction while being immersed in VR.

I was really impressed by this research but disappointed to discover that interactive, immersive distraction wasnt being used at burn centres and paediatric hospitals, says Robertson. So, I kind of made that my mission.

Robertson hauled his old computer and clunky VR headset to Oakland Childrens Hospital, now called the UCSF Benioff Childrens Hospital Oakland, and excitedly presented his findings.

They were struck by the research but told Robertson to slow down and had him become a child life specialist volunteer. He spent about a year working bedside with haematology patients, mostly those suffering from sickle cell disease. At this time no VR was involved. Instead, Robertson used the opportunity to get a sense of the common procedures that these patients go through and imagine what integrating VR to help them would look like.

From there, Robertson partnered with Dr Anne Marsh, director of the Paediatric Sickle Cell Clinic and associate haematologist/oncologist at UCSF Benioff, who became the primary investigator on the first clinical trial for KindVR the VR therapy firm Robertson founded in 2014 looking at harnessing VR for sickle cell inpatients during vaso-occlusive pain crises.

Patients with sickle cell disease are burdened with excruciating episodes of pain and often require hospitalisation for intravenous opioids to help relieve it. Opioids, although necessary for episodes of intense pain, often are not sufficient and come with a myriad of other problems like addiction, adverse reactions and declining long-term efficacy.

In the UCSF Benioff trial, Robertson and Marsh enrolled a convenience sample of 30 sickle cell patients aged eight years or older, all of whom were admitted with a vaso-occlusive pain episode.

Results showed pain intensity dropped significantly after a single VR session, with improvements in sensory, affective, evaluative and temporal pain domains. The use of the VR sets, which were programmed with KindVR Aqua, a calming virtual underwater world, was very well received by patients, parents and hospital staff.

KindVR now has 10 clinical trials underway with 10 leading hospitals and three trials that are completed and published. Other indications where KindVRs tech is being trialled include a variety of cancer procedures, laceration repair, preoperative stress, MRI practice and IV insertion.

Robertson says VRs ability to reduce pain and stress all comes down to distraction directing patients attention to a virtual world leaves a little less bandwidth for the brain to process the pain signals that go up the spine.

The truth is, distraction is something thats been known by providers and parents for many years, Robertson says. My first day working in Oakland Childrens I saw child life specialists use a vibrating pillow on the side of the patient, asking them to focus on that physical sensation while they did a difficult procedure on the opposite side of this patients body while simultaneously playing a game of I Spy a more cognitive form of distraction.

I was watching this kiddo be distracted on two fronts, and it became clear to me that thats the magic of VR. Its not necessarily a panacea, it just happens to be a little bit better at hijacking the brain senses, by controlling what you see and hear and your sense of presence in the environment. It pulls you out of that hospital. Really that just adds up to a more effective distraction technique. I see VR as just another step forward in being able to distract patients from processing that pain, and giving them something to look at.

KindVR has a number of worlds, or applications tailored specifically to the hospital setting. When we think about VR, we normally imagine exciting immersion where the wearer might experience riding a rollercoaster or being chased by a T-Rex. While these situations sound fun, they are not suitable for a patient in hospital who is having an IV insertion or using very powerful medication to manage their pain.

Patients deserve access to software thats designed for their specific patient population or the procedure theyre going through, says Robertson. That was the foundation for me as a designer, to design for these procedures. Related Report Thematic ReportsAre you worried about the pace of innovation in your industry?

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Aqua is KindVRs main application for acute pain and stress, an underwater adventure where patients interact with whales and dolphins and play a very simple game. Its designed to be used from a hospital bed or a wheelchair, as patients may have restricted mobility. They find themselves in a little submarine that acts as a safe space while they interact with the environment and also encourages them to face forward in their seat and keep still. This can help increase safety and reduce pain and stress in a number of hospital procedures.

KindVRs clinical trial at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto looks at port access procedures a common procedure for oncology patients for chemotherapy delivery. Robertson created a custom version of Aqua designed for patients to lay back, being either supported by their parents, or at about 45 degrees in their chair.

Patients play a version of the game where all the visuals in the underwater world are just above eye level, meaning that the patient will naturally assume a position that is perfect for the nurse to carry out the procedure.

We found it really can reduce the pain in the procedure but also that pre-procedural anxiety and anticipatory pain that goes with it, Robertson says.

KindVR provides a complete solution for the hospitals and contract research organisations (CROs) they are involved with. They run clinical trials with all partner hospitals on each application to ensure that they are validated for safety and efficacy.

The headsets are wireless and dont rely on the internet, nor do they collect patient data and are HIPAA-compliant.

Pre-Covid, KindVR would visit each hospital to train staff on how to use the hardware but over the past year, this training has been done via Zoom.

Robertson says the use of VR technology in clinical trials can aid in patient recruitment and retention. Participating in a clinical trial or enrolling a child is a big decision that often requires a long commitment involving some very difficult days of pharmacokinetic (PK) testing and blood draws. These procedures can bring a lot of anxiety both on the day and leading up to it.

We really think being able to provide a headset as a pain mitigation and anxiety-reducing tool can really encourage patients to enrol, says Robertson.

This is especially true for children, who we think have to go through some of the most gruelling procedures out there. If we can take that first moment of extreme anxiety, pain and stress and prevent it by allowing the patient to escape into a virtual world, we can change that patients relationship with the hospital.

Robertson says the hospitals he collaborates with have received many reports of patients that used the KindVR headsets saying they were happy to go back to the hospitals associated with such a positive experience. Thats really where were hoping to get to, both for our clinical trials and our daily-use hospitals.

Robertson has found that another outcome of using VR is that it has been of huge value to parents and providers as well as patients.

Providers love integrating VR when they do difficult procedures because they dont have to be as much of a villain, he says. Parents email me frequently talking about having to hold their own child down during difficult procedures, and often VR changes that entirely. Some of these parents report that their child doesnt even notice the procedure when its happening.

From the provider perspective, there are also benefits when it comes to saving time and money. Robertson said that some of KindVRs future trials will be looking at just that.

With some more stressful or painful procedures that can cause a patient breakdown, a 10-minute procedure can take an hour thats where VR might help accelerate some things.

Robertson says KindVR has had incredible success with needle pokes, burn wound dressing and laceration repair and the company is now looking to target reducing pain and stress in more complicated procedures, including catheter placements, cranial nerve block for patients with migraines and lumbar punctures. Additionally, the company will be looking at using the headsets to prep patients for MRI scans and for treatment in rehab.

Theres no shortage of procedures for us to look at and as headsets get lighter and easier to use, I think some of the hardware is going to fade away and will become more about patients being able to manage this on their own and have these as effective and safe validated tools, Robertson says.

Looking towards the increasingly prevalent decentralised clinical trial approach, KindVR currently has a paediatric study in development with an unnamed CRO targeting a rare disease and wanting to reduce the number of times patients have to go to the hospital to participate. KindVR is planning to send VR headsets to the families, who will use them while home health nurses conduct blood draws.

Im really proud to be able to look at these design challenges and be at this really interesting intersection of interactive technology and healthcare, says Robertson.

I think theres no limit of where this can go in terms of improving patient lives, and Im really hoping that more hospitals will continue to take time to integrate this and that CROs and pharma companies will continue to see its value too. Over the next five years, I think this technology will become more and more commonplace.

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Brave new world: trialling virtual reality to ease pain and stress - Clinical Trials Arena

Pune, India, May 04, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The global virtual reality in education market size is expected to reach USD 13,098.2 million by 2026, exhibiting a CAGR of 42.9% during the forecast period. The increasing utilization of virtual reality in the education sector due to its effectiveness and immersive capability will have an excellent impact on the virtual reality in education market growth, states Fortune Business Insights, in a report, titled Virtual Reality in Education Market Size, 2019-2026. The market size stood at USD 656.6 million in 2018.

COVID-19 Impact:

Shift towards VR and AR to Encourage Market during COVID-19

The growing concerns about children returning to school have resulted in the popularity of all-virtual education amid the outbreak. VR has become a valid option in engaging kids to learn online. The interactive and immersive experience offered by the VR has put a positive response from parents and children. The safety of VR to benefit kids learn and socialize more effectively will push the global virtual reality in education industry. Besides, many companies are engaging in collaborations to incite remote learning for students. For instance, Pico Interactive, a leader of VictoryXR and VR platforms, along with education solutions announced that it has signed an agreement to educate children with its remote learning tools during the pandemic. The venture involves making education interactive and straightforward with AR and VR. Students can visit a science lab just by donning a headset.

To get to know more about the short-term and long-term impact of COVID-19 on this market,

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Market Segments:

Based on application, the market is segmented into K-12, higher education, and vocational training. The higher education segment is likely to hold the largest share during the forecast period. Virtual reality offers seamless learning opportunities to students. Fundraising, student recruitment, immersive learning are some of the major applications of VR in higher education.

Based on Component, the market is classified into hardware, software, and content.

Based on Geography, the market is classified into North America, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East and Africa.The report on the virtual reality in education market reveals:

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Driving Factor:

Rising Popularity of Virtual Learning Environment to Foster Growth

The increasing digitalization has created opportunities for the market. The growing acceptance of online education will bolster growth of the virtual reality in education market. The shift from traditional class to the virtual classroom will enable speedy expansion of the market in the forthcoming years. Furthermore, the increasing adoption of virtual learning environment owing to its benefits such as flexible schedule, individual accountability, mobility, student-centered learning, and others will further influence healthy growth of the market. Besides, the fewer costs involved in setting up virtual classroom compared to teh traditional classroom will push the virtual reality in education market share. For example, Queens University in Canada and SimforHealth collaborated with HTC to open a VR training facility for medical students for real-time operations in an immersive virtual environment.

Regional Insights:

Rising Penetration of Smartphones to Support Market in Asia Pacific

The market in North America is expected to hold the largest share during the forecast period. The increasing demand for advanced education systems will contribute effectively to the market growth in the region. Moreover, the presence of Google, Facebook, and their aim to develop educational games based on the VR technology, including 360 Degree Educational Video Viewing and other training will further strengthen the market. Asia Pacific is expected to experience a rapid growth rate during the forecast period. The growth is attributed to rising penetration of smartphones in India and China. The increasing internet penetration will back the development of the market in Asia pacific. Moreover, the rising need for VR in colleges and schools will further augment the growth in the region.

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Competitive Landscape:

Companies to Offer Advanced VR Solution to Reinforce their Market Position

Prominent Players are innovating ways to establish a strong footprint in the industry. For instance, Oculus distributed a number of VR headsets and standalone Go headsets to education institutes across countries. Oculus has also worked with the California state library, conducted research with MIT and Harvard universities to promote VR headsets. Similarly, HTC Vive provided educational VR games such as Speech trainerAnd Lifeliqe VR museum. Several educational institutions deploy HTCs games due to their creative and problem-solving capabilities.

Key Development:

September 2019: Quality Executive Partners, Inc., a management consulting firm serving the life sciences industry, announced introduced Virtuosi, an on-demand educational platform that leverages virtual reality features. Virtuosi encompass digital technical courses, knowledge assessment, and interactive VR experiences.

February 2019: Immersive Experience and educational expertise released RegattaVR. RegattaVr is an immersive learning company promoting talent development at the enterprise level.

The Report Lists the Key Companies in the Virtual Reality in Education Market:

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Detailed Table of Contents:

TOC Continued..

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Virtual Reality in Education Market to Reach USD 13,098.2 - GlobeNewswire

Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives arean integral part ofcorporate strategy for companies big and small, but the question remains: DoDEI consultants, workshops, and online trainingactually work?

It's not always easy to tell.E-learning programs can track how much time an employee spent on a module and what they clicked, but not much else. Workshop-style training is more interactive, but harder to scale, especially when people work remotely. Employees can report whether they found a given session to be useful, but collecting this informationwon't necessarily help bosses decide what to do next.

The founders of Praxis Labs, aNew York City-based DEI training startup, think there's a better way:train people in virtual reality. In the nascent field of VR skills training, Praxis is one of a new crop of startups aiming to tacklethorny workplace problems with immersive learning. The company promises both to help individuals become more empathetic andto help companies overhaul their cultures.

"Up until now, we really haven't been able to identify not only 'Are learners learning?' but 'Are we actually taking in, as organizations, the data, and insights to be able to change structures, systems, policies, and practices that will help increase inclusion and belonging?'" says Elise Smith, Praxis Labs' co-founder and CEO.

Enterprise VR learning has been on the verge of taking off for years, but the pandemic has brought the industry to an inflection point, says Kyle Jackson, co-founder and CEO of Talespin, a VR training company in Culver City, California. Headsets have gotten more affordable, in-person training is no longer feasible for many companies, and there's more published research showing that immersive learning really works. For example,a 2020 study of VR soft-skills training by the global consulting firm PwC's U.S. emerging technology group found thatpeople learn four times faster on average in VR than in a traditional classroom, and are more confident to act on what they learned. The study also concluded that, at scale, VR training can be less expensive.

"It's taken a while to be able to show stats, and, of course, if you're looking at corporations, they always want to look at stats," says Raffaella Camera, who ran consulting firm Accenture's AR/VR operation as the global head of innovation and strategy until 2020. Praxis Labs knows this very well. "We've realized the importance of using research and having the research back our curriculum and our learning journeys," says Heather Shen, the company's co-founder and chief product officer.

Smith, 30, metShen, 24, when they were both graduate students at Stanford University in 2018. Smith, who is Black, was pursuing one master's degree in business administration and another in education. She hadworked in product development and sales atIBM's Watson Groupand coached DEI-orientedentrepreneurs at a nonprofit that invests in education companies.Shen, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, was studying electrical engineering after stints at NASA and at Microsoft, where she worked on the second generation of the HoloLensmixed reality headset. The two bonded over their similar experiences as women of color and their interest in using technology for learning. Theystarted hashingout the business idea andlaunched Praxis Labs the following year.

Scraping together cash from grants, student fellowships, and pitch competitions, Smith and Shendeveloped pairs of 10-minute simulations that allow the learner to "pivot" between two perspectives: that of a person experiencing bias and that of a bystander. The topics are linked to "representation, resources, and respect"--three things a person needs to thrive in the workplace, Smith says. In one scenario, a learner takesthe perspective of a Black woman whose co-worker disrespects her by touching her hair without asking. The learner practices responding and then goes through a guided reflection onthe incident. The whole module takes about 30 minutes. A month later, they experiencethe same scenario from an outsider's point of view. Between modules, learners receive email reminders with readings and activities to help them practice what they learned in real life, Smith says.

When Praxis started beta testing--landing clients including Amazon, Google, and Target--the founders learnedthat companieswanted to be able to track their progressthrough the training at the organizational level. So they developed a dashboardthat showsaggregated data on employees' progress and engagement.Praxisalso asks each learnerto identify areas where their companycan improve with regard to diversity, equity, and inclusion. It uses this information toidentify "hotspots" in a company's culture--an unfriendly attitude toward parental leave, for example, or a lack of reporting channelsfor incidents of bias--and recommends ways to address them.

The roadto product launch hasn't been entirely smooth. "Covid definitely threw us for a loop for a moment," Shen says. "People don't necessarily want to put headsets on their face during this time." But when it came time to raise money, the founders' early hustle paid off. On February 22, Praxis Labs announced its$3.2 million seed round--raised fromSoftBank's SB Opportunity Fund and Laurene Powell Jobs's Emerson Collective, among other investors--and the launch of its flagship curriculum, Pivotal Experiences. Companies can sign up for a six- or 12-month "learning journey," with modules that can take place via VR headset or web browser, and pay per employee. Praxis's founders declined to disclose the company's revenue, but say they've already signed up clients. The company has eight full-time employees.

For the next year, Praxis Labs' founders plan to focus on learning from theirinitial clients and improving their product. "One of the great things about being a startup is that we can iterate so quickly and get feedback from some of these top-tier companies," says Shen. Building a startup that deals with such heavy subjects, however,can be draining, especially for two young women of color.

"We are trying to solve a challenge that is tied to systems of inequity and White supremacy--all of the systems and structures that have created the inequities we see and experience in workplaces and society writ large," says Smith. "It's a hard, complex, nuanced challenge."

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the timing of Praxis Labs'partnership with Uber. The company began its partnership with Praxis Labs in 2021. The article also misstated the number of employees at Praxis Labs. The company has eight full-time employees.

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Praxis Labs Is Making Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion a Reality With Virtual Reality - Inc.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. A professor at Purdue University is teaching his students astronomy by letting them touch the stars. Danny Milisavljevic, assistant professor of physics and astronomy, is using innovative new technology for his students to use virtual reality headsets to explore space.

The first technology of its kind to allow connection by students in different locations rather than on the same Wi-Fi network the headsets are also based on lightweight, relatively inexpensive and commercially available hardware. The technology was used for the first time last month in his Intermediate Astronomy II class.

The virtual reality environment allows students to fly through and around astronomical objects including stars and supernovae, and manipulate them to observe how they have changed over time, something that is possible thanks to enormous quantities of rich 3D modeling information and analyses. The system emphasizes scientific fidelity, giving a clear and accurate depiction of datasets. Similar systems eventually could allow students to study other topics including looking at microscopic or cellular data, anatomy, geospatial terrains, historical locations or even complex animated machinery.A video is available on YouTube.

Other companies and institutions have used virtual reality in a similar way before, but Milisavljevics solution is more scalable and less expensive costing hundreds of dollars per unit rather than thousands and drastically improves accessibility, allowing students to collaborate from anywhere on the globe with Wi-Fi.

Milisavljevic already had built the virtual-reality platform, but with the onset of the pandemic, and concurrent mandates for socially distanced learning, he applied for an National Science Foundation RAPID Grant to help him develop this technology so that people did not have to be in the same physical location to share a virtual environment.

I was awarded an instructional innovation grant as a learning aid, Milisavljevic said. We put on this headset, or even on a PC or Mac, and now we can all be in the same virtual environment. The instructors and students have great control over what were seeing, and we can collaborate to understand the stellar dynamics happening in distant galaxies and nebulae.

The first test of the technology in a classroom environment was hugely successful, according to Milisavljevic, and he will continue to use it throughout the rest of the year. His students responded overwhelmingly positively.

This is the coolest thing I have done in a year! wrote one student. Its just plain fun, and its super visually helpful for a subject like astronomy where things can be hard to visualize in 2D.

It was an awesome experience, another wrote. I felt as though I was actually walking around in space and the real-time manipulation of the stellar remnant renderings really added to the learning experience."

About the Envision Center

The Envision Center provides novel solutions to effectively communicate complex research concepts. Computer graphics, advanced visualization, auditory, haptic, and multimodal interaction integrate with state-of-the-art high-performance computation to assist researchers, instructors, and leaders in their quest for new knowledge and innovative products.

About Purdue University

Purdue University is a top public research institution developing practical solutions to todays toughest challenges. Ranked the No. 5 Most Innovative University in the United States by U.S. News & World Report, Purdue delivers world-changing research and out-of-this-world discovery. Committed to hands-on and online, real-world learning, Purdue offers a transformative education to all. Committed to affordability and accessibility, Purdue has frozen tuition and most fees at 2012-13 levels, enabling more students than ever to graduate debt-free. See how Purdue never stops in the persistent pursuit of the next giant leap athttps://purdue.edu/.

Writer, Media contact: Brittany Steff; 765-494-7833; bsteff@purdue.edu

Source: Dan Milisavljevic, dmilisav@purdue.edu

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Flying among the stars - Purdue News Service

May 5, 2021 - When Carl Johnson entered Gulf Coast Medical Centers Skilled Nursing Unit with a foot injury, he had no idea deep sea swimming, herding sheep and volleyball would be part of his therapy.

I got so into it, I almost forgot it was a virtual reality machine and I wasnt actually doing those things, said Johnson. The virtual reality equipment really made me move and stand up and do exercises I normally wouldnt do. It was so fun and I absolutely loved it.

At Gulf Coasts Skilled Nursing Unit, Johnson is one of more than 100 patients that have been able to take part in the health systems new virtual reality technology.

Patient Carl Johnson uses the new virtual reality equipment inside Gulf Coast Medical Centers Skilled Nursing Unit

Originally obtained for COVID-19 patients within the hospital, the virtual reality units enable patients to do things like virtually ride a bike, garden and even play bingo while they are inside a hospital room.

There are two different kinds of virtual technology units available at Gulf Coasts Skilled Nursing Unit. One is an OmniCycle, a therapeutic exercise cycle and the other is a virtual reality machine, a device with a TV-like screen.

The technology has been proven to help with fall prevention and balance, pain management, better breathing, and overall better patient outcomes.

Being in isolation was lonely for many of our COVID-19 patients and we wanted to do something to lift their spirits while helping them recover. Thats how this program was started, said Bethany Schroll, physical therapist at Gulf Coast Medical Centers Skilled Nursing Unit. We knew we needed to get creative, so we explored virtual reality and got units that we could thoroughly sanitize and take into the patients room. It has made such a difference in their physical and mental health.

Once the COVID-19 unit within Gulf Coasts Skilled Nursing Unit closed due to lower numbers of COVID-19 patients within Lee Healths hospitals, the team there began using the virtual reality technology for its skilled nursing patients. For many of the seniors within the unit, it has helped them become more engaged in their physical therapy.

We had one patient who refused to do any type of physical therapy. Once we got her to try the virtual technology, she started virtually gardening, and that bridged the gap from the virtual world to the physical world, and after that, we got her to participate in physical therapy, which was so beneficial for her, said Schroll. Overall, this technology has just been amazing and our patients have loved it.

Gulf Coast received this equipment in the fall of 2020, and since then, theyve had several virtual outdoor activities, including a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving where patients even got a medal for a being a top finisher.

About Lee Health

Since the opening of the first hospital in 1916, Lee Health has been a health care leader in Southwest Florida, constantly evolving to meet the needs of the community. A non-profit, integrated health care services organization, Lee Health is committed to the well-being of every individual served, focused on healthy living and maintaining good health. Staffed by caring people, inspiring health, services are conveniently located throughout the community in four acute care hospitals, two specialty hospitals, outpatient centers, walk-in medical centers, primary care and specialty physician practices and other services across the continuum of care. Learn more at http://www.LeeHealth.org

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Lee Health offers innovative virtual reality technology to patients in skilled nursing unit: SF STAT! - South Florida Hospital News