How a hospice’s new virtual reality treatment has a striking similarity to a Black Mirror episode
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Fans of Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror are likely to recognise similarities in how a hospice has taken on a new approach to caring for terminally ill patients to an episode of the famous sci-fi series.
In similar fashion to the San Junipero episode of the show on Netflix, where terminally ill patients are given the chance to enter a virtual reality where they are in a different location, patients at a Leicester hospice can wear a headset to be transported virtually to a location they are fond of.
John Lee, 70, has Motor Neurone Disease (MND) and was the first one to try this out at LOROS.
He said it was "just like" walking through a park in Leiecester he used to visit, as he had a 360 degree view.
"You soon relax, it's just like you're there, I loved it. I nearly waved at somebody, as they walked past," Mr Lee said.
LOROS CEO, John Knight, believed it may be the first hospice in the country to use a virtual reality film of a familiar setting as a therapeutic setting.
He said: "Research suggests that the brain accepts the virtual world within 20 seconds after which the experience becomes all absorbing.