The coronavirus has had a huge impact on intellectual fitness around the world. Forgetting the physical damage that Covid-19 can cause, the fear of contracting the virus and the isolation of lockdown have inevitably taken their toll on our collective intellectual well-being. And while the most useful technology to combat those effects would be vaccination, augmented truth and virtual truth are increasingly emerging as tools to alleviate our anxiety and stress.
An April KFF poll found that as many as 45% of Americans report the negative effect of the coronavirus on their intellectual health. Given that this percentage was only 32% in March, this increase shows the cumulative intellectual damage that Covid-19 can cause. Similarly, data from the Census Bureau indicates that, during the week ending June 23, about 36% of U. S. adults suffer from symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders.
This is a big problem. It’s unlikely that there will be a vaccine until next year at the earliest (if there is one), so learning how to deal with the coronavirus and some degree of self-isolation will become increasingly vital over time. Fortunately, there is more and more information about the augmented truth. And virtual truth answers promise to ease many of the tensions and anxieties caused by the coronavirus.
At one end of the scale, there are a number of more casual virtual reality and augmented reality games and apps that help other people reduce their anxiety. For example, DEEP VR is a meditative virtual reality game developed in partnership with Radboud University that uses the mechanics of biofeedback. as a control system. Slated for release later this year, the wearer explores a beautiful underwater world by breathing deeply and slowly, with their breath measured through a belt that wraps around their diaphragm. It has been shown through studies that such breathing relaxes the body. nervous system. Therefore, it is possible that gambling will help other people reduce their stress levels.
Similarly, SoundSelf is a virtual reality-based meditation experience created through Andromeda Entertainment, a developer focused on designing games that promote mindfulness. Launched in April, SoundSelf aims to send the player into a meditative trance, updating and modifying psychedelic virtual worlds. It is created when the player inhales and exhales in long tones.
Taking a slightly different approach, Healium is a Missouri-founded company that uses virtual truth and augmented truth in combination with neurofeedback for tension and anxiety. Its app monitors the user’s brain waves and core frequency through an EEG headband, employing this data to build an environment founded on virtual truth or augmented truth. The concept is that, as the user sees how his intellectual state adjusts the virtual global that surrounds him, he gradually becomes informed of it.
What’s significant about virtual truth and augmented truth for relieving anxiety is that they offer a greater sense of truth and immersion than, say, traditional meditation or mindfulness practice. This explanation is largely due to why those figures appear in AR/ The VR industry is increasingly advocating for greater adoption of augmented reality and virtual reality, not only in the home, but also in clinical settings.
Miri Polachek is one of them. Joy Ventures, CEO of the incubator and wellness-focused investment firm, tells me that augmented reality and virtual reality constitute a major leap forward in the way Americans take care of their intellectual health.
“AR and VR offer a more immersive experience through their multi-sensory approaches,” he says. “For example, AR/VR technologies that lead to a sense of ’embodiment’, when a user feels that what they see is what they are actually experiencing, can be used for exposure or empathy therapy, which has been shown in studies to provide the right long-term effects for coping with trauma and anxiety disorders.
As Polacheck says, several studies have indicated the efficacy of virtual truth in the treatment of intellectual fitness disorders. It’s no surprise, then, that in addition to more casual games and apps, virtual truth and augmented truth are also making their way into physical care systems. around the world.
In Spain, for example, Barcelona-based company Psious has developed an all-in-one virtual truth platform for therapists and intellectual fitness professionals to treat anxiety disorders through exposure therapy. It offers more than 70 virtual environments covering a variety of disorders, from social anxiety to fear of heights to eating disorders. In the context of the coronavirus, it also offers many settings such as mindfulness, relaxation, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. It currently has around 2,000 clients, including the NHS, the Santa Creu I Sant Pau Hospital. , Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, and many universities.
It is vital to note that augmented truth and virtual truth-based treatments are not just a stopgap measure for the coronavirus pandemic and related lockdowns. Increasingly, they are adapting to favorable technologies in their own right and will be used even more widely even after things get back up and running. to normality.
“Augmented truth and virtual truth-based remedies and remedies offer much more than just the ‘best alternative’ to in-person therapy,” Polacheck says. “They can serve as an independent healing team or complement in-person treatment, allowing for an organized and controlled Virtual Experience that extends individual care outside of the clinic. “
Augmented truth and virtual truth also offer something new in the realm of home and clinical therapy: the ability to deliver highly personalized healing experiences. “These experiments can be adapted, even in real time, based on an individual’s needs and then tested. and change accordingly to generate effective long-term results,” Polachek adds.
No less unique is the fact that AR/VR-based healing reports are also inherently evolutionary. Thus, while in-person treatment with a doctor or psychiatrist will be limited to the number of people a fitness branch can serve on a day, week, and year, virtual truth and augmented truth-based reporting can be tailored to an indefinite number of other people, regardless of geographic location or time of day.
In fact, companies are already taking advantage of the scalability offered by virtual reality. In the United States, Massachusetts-based XR Health is a virtual telehealth company with more than 500 qualified healthcare professionals nationwide. Lately she provides physical therapy, tension relief, cognitive therapy, pain management, and more.
XR Health headsets and controllers.
Fittingly, it also offers a “respiratory recovery” service, tailored to coronavirus survivors. Regardless of which remedy users choose, signing up for XR Health also allows them to meet via video conferencing with medical doctors. These professionals load the user’s XR Health headset with applicable remedies and virtual experiences, which they then monitor to make sure the remedy is running for the user.
As the example of XR Health indicates, the use of virtual truth in the context of anxiety and intellectual fitness is not new. However, the coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the spread and use of virtual reality and augmented reality to mitigate and treat intellectual fitness issues.
“The coronavirus pandemic has already caused a strong ripple effect, raising awareness of technologies that can help address many of the existing limitations of the healthcare system,” says Polachek. “This has been true for telehealth, not just at the individual level until now. Also at the regulatory point, where lawmakers are making virtual care more available, and the same will be true for AR and VR customer products aimed at emotional well-being. “
With social distancing most likely to continue through 2022, intellectual fitness will remain a serious factor in many countries, and distancing will also make traditional treatment more complicated. As a result, Polacheck believes that “there is no doubt that the pandemic, with all its consequences, will serve as an accelerator for the disruption of customer technologies aimed at emotional well-being. “
Of course, it would possibly not be ideal to rely on the virtual generation for treatment rather than actual doctors and psychiatrists, especially when privacy considerations come into play. But since many hospitals and doctors would use it anyway for intellectual fitness treatments, it turns out that as virtual truth is a generation whose time has come.