NeuroVR

Inspiration

There are many cases out there where VR is used for rehab or other immersive healthcare experiences. However, these companies and academics fail to recognize these three main things: building the user experience for the patients themselves, treatment staff centered software, and most importantly, they're building simulations, not video games! This early prototype is how it can be done RIGHT

What it does

There are five experiences, all in the three stages of how to solve the issues mentioned above. The 'patient' is taken to an immersive experience and asked to complete a task. Such tasks include catching tennis balls (pinch, arm extension/flexion, elbow extension/flexion, reaction time), stargazing, making your own constellation (pinch, neck movement), climbing (trunk movement), city exploration (early stage, elbow movement and wrist movement), and whack an owl (elbow extension/flexion, pinch).

The three stages are rapid prototyping, patient centered implementation, then beautification and gamification.

How we built it

I built these experiences in Unity 2022, with the C# language, and using online assets. I used my Quest 2 with the XR Interaction Toolkit. Many assets were taken from online with free licenses or the Unity Asset Store.

Challenges we ran into

Building these games fast was a huge issue. Sometimes, I got carried away and just kept working on the scene or a long, drawn out bug that I could have taken care of later. I couldn't finish all three stages in the case, but the goal was to showcase the use case for each exercise.

It was also difficult coming up with games that could diversify the exercises. This will be done later.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Making five experiences in the stages was pretty cool. I did get carried away trying to make a huge city at one point, and rapidly trying other things out.

Working on patient centered software was fun, implementing features such as controller reorientation to allow the player to play no matter how they're holding the controller, it will be treated as normal.

What we learned

This is hard, but I learned that this is also a huge problem in the healthcare system and that this program WILL solve it.

What's next for NeuroVR

These are the next steps if I were to continue working on this: 1) Work with local hospitals and treatment centers to develop things centered towards the patient. I will take the exercises and analyze cultural factors to make such games. 2) Work towards beautification and gamification of such experiences 3) Integrate with Telehealth software. I personally have a few connections for this, but as we approach 2030 where Telehealth will be a 500 billion dollar industry, we need to find ways to keep patients engaged if they were to do certain stroke or neuro care at home.

Built With

• c#
• unity