Addiction, research, health in a virtual world
Australia’s ABC TV recently screened an interesting piece on the use of virtual reality in the treatment of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder – you can view it here.
There’s also an extra 7-minute interview with a US Marine whose PTSD treatment was benefitted by the use of virtual reality.
A new working group looking at the psychology of immersive environments is about to launch in Second Life. The inaugural get-together is occurring Wednesday July 15th at 4pm SL time. Click here for the exact location. Thanks to Dusan Writer for the heads up.
DeeAnna Nagel and Kate Anthony are psychotherapists and founders of the Online Therapy Institute. The pair have only recently expanded their work to Second Life, but they have extensive experience in working with people therapeutically online. The pair now have a presence on Jokaydia in Second Life. I caught up with them to talk online [...]
Virtual Ability island continue their regular health-related events. This time, smoking cessation is the focus: Moving toward wellness: Smoking Cessation Tuesday, September 9 8:00 a.m. & 4:00 p.m. SLT Virtual Ability Island This workshop is funded by a grant from the National Library of Medicine, and supported by the Alliance Library System. Nearly 8 years [...]
I’ve gone on ad nauseam about the benefits of virtual environments in regard to communal support around health issues. In the physical world, one of the most powerful support campaigns of the past 25 years is the AIDS quilt. Thanks to a joint initiative between Startled Cat and Jokaydia, that sucess story has moved into [...]
The past couple of weeks have seen some interesting articles in the mainstream media on virtual environments and health. The first is in the Jerusalem Post, showing the benefits for the vision impaired. You can view the full article here. The second appears in Information Week and covers the use of Second Life by Chicago [...]
If you’ve got an interest in writing on serious games, this may be your thing: CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS Proposal Submission Deadline: September 5, 2008 Serious Game Design and Development: Technologies for Training and Learning A book edited by Dr. Janis Cannon-Bowers & Dr. Clint Bowers University of Central Florida Purpose and Goals of the [...]
(Originally published earlier this week over at The Metaverse Journal) Over the past few days a product announcement and some interesting research have come together for me in illustrating some of the downsides of heavy regular use of virtual environments. I’m talking specifically about the physical impacts here: we’ve covered the psychological positives and negatives [...]
Rather than assessing their students through a paper-based examination, or even by having real, live people come in to pretend to be patients, it is starting to become more common to hear of healthcare educators asking their students instead to use computer applications and tools featuring digitally-created patients. There are a myriad decisions that need [...]
It’s coming up to a year since we interviewed DeeAnna Nagel and Kate Anthony and discussed counselling in online environments broadly and in virtual environments more specifically. Over that time, the Online Therapy Institute has continued to grow. One example of this is the announcement of a five-hour course on online supervision. Anyone who works [...]
I noticed this interesting news article at the Thanh Nien Daily. Essentially, it’s an intensive course running on weekends for two months. On the face of it it seems a useful option for those with issues impacting their lives detrimentally. Looking a little closer though, and the alarm bells start ringing. Take this for example: [...]
There’s another new health project in development in Second Life – Karuna. It’s The focus is ‘HIV / AIDS education, outreach and support’ and it’s scheduled for launch on December 1st, World AIDS Day. Partners in the project include AIDS.gov and the University of North Carolina Center for AIDS research, Community Outreach, Dissemination, and Education [...]
Today I stumbled across this great bunch of photos on the National Geographic site, showing a range of advanced robotics projects underway (some of which I’ve covered here before, including the one pictured). Have a look through them all and you can see some of the superb simulation opportunities these robots will provide. Would love [...]