How virtual reality is helping seniors breathe new life into old memories
MyndVR is among a handful of companies now developing VR for seniors, including San Francisco- and London-based startup Virtue Health, which is now awaiting results of another study examining the impact of VR on dementia patients in the United Kingdom.
Albert Rizzo, director of the medical virtual reality program at the University of Southern California’s Institute for Creative Technologies and an adviser to MyndVR, says that while it’s hard to precisely gauge its benefits for seniors and dementia patients, “VR has the capability of creating emotionally evocative experiences … Your worst nightmare when you get older is that you’re going to end up in a home and you’re going to see the same four walls all the time.”
The MyndVR system, which the company says is now used in senior facilities in 30 states, lets users try a range of experiences, from touring cities around the world to watching puppies frolic. Users can even go back to their youth — for example, ducking into a 1950s-era nightclub to take in a performance by a Frank Sinatra lookalike or visiting iconic sites along Route 66, including the Gateway Arch in St. Louis and the South Rim of the Grand Canyon in Arizona.
The company says it charges senior centers $350 to $2,000 a month for the service, depending in part upon the specific content provided.