VR Setup for older people/dementia

Dribbles

Dribbles

Dribbles

Associate
Joined
1 Jul 2009
Posts
207
Location
Edinburgh
Hi all,

I'm looking for some thoughts and advice. I work for a small charity and I run a project where I take trained young volunteers into sheltered housing to do activities with socially isolated older people. I'm always on the look out for innovative activity ideas.

I recently saw this: http://www.tribemix.co.uk/dementia-vr/ and wondered if we could implement something similar. I was think of applying for a grant to purchase a HTC Vive and a VR capable gaming laptop (from ocuk!) and taking it to sheltered housing/carehomes/community centres for older people to have a go.

I've never used VR, but have done a lot of reading and am a keen pc gamer. I have a few questions?

  • How quick would it be for me to set up at a location?
  • What would be a reasonable cost for a HTC Vive and gaming laptop? £2000?
  • Is it okay to use vive while sitting down with the paddles?
  • What games would be good to use?
    - I thought, the valve lab one with robotic dog, the beachball one, google earth vr, job simulator, tilt brush. Would love a good list of simple, fun games - nothing that one cause panic or fear!
  • Could I plug a projector into the laptop while vive in use and display on the wall for everyone to view what the user sees?

If you have any other thoughts, much appreciated. I've identified a few funders to apply to if you guys thought this would be a viable idea. My colleagues run 4-5 other projects with older people and people with dementia, so we could deliver these sessions to hundreds of people potentially.

Thanks!
 
it would be pretty easy to set up, you can put the lighthouses on tripods so that they can be moved around if needed.
a lot of games can be played sat down but room scale is better. you can set it to show the boundries in game so if you get to close to a wall etc it shows up inside the headset.
you can view what the head set sees by clicking on the settings in the steam vr app and selecting mirror view, also the games open on the pc so you are able to see whats going on, you can also mirror the sound to come through the laptop.
as for games to try there are loads of different types.
nvidia fun house is good its just lots of mini "fair ground" type games
paddle up is a good table tennis game and you can play against ai or just a ball shooter
the lab has several good mini games to try
google earth to view the worlds locations in vr
tilt brush for drawing in 3d that you can walk around
the golf club vr is also good and its played basically standing in one spot, it also has difficulting settings to help with power. hook, slice etc to make it easier.

as foir the pricing im not too sure, the vive is just under £800 and it runs fine on my pc which is a gtx970 oc'd and a i5 3570k oc'd to 4.6 so any specs around there or above will do fine id say.
if you wanted an extra you could go for a decent wheel and project cars too
 
That video is awesome. The magic that VR can bring to older people is amazing.

- Setup would be fairly quick, just setting up 1 tripod for seated or 2 for roomscale, then attach basestations, plug everything into power, plug all the cables in, boot up SteamVR and you're good to go. Having a cover on the headset foam that you can wipe down with a gentle cleansing wipe would be a good idea for hygiene reasons with various people using it one after the other. Allow some extra time for troubleshooting as sometimes it can be a bit finicky and not want to startup without doing some unplugging, replugging in etc.
- You could get a laptop and Vive for about £1500 at the moment. There's a MSI GS63VR on a popular rain forest named website at the moment for £850 which is a bargain! From Overclockers you're right at about £2k or slightly more for both I reckon.
- Seated VR is fine, for some experiences you don't need the controllers at all, they can just sit and enjoy. Obviously if movement is involved in the game/experience this would increase the likelihood of motion sickness.
- All those games you suggested would be fine, but they would need to use the controllers to play them. With Job Simulator you should be fine using little person mode and being seated.
If the person doesn't have a fear of deep water, The Blu would be a fantastic experience for them, as you don't need to use the controllers, you can just sit and look around in awe.
Destinations would be another good one for minimal controller use and putting them in various places throughout the world. Realities is also good for this as well.
VR Funhouse might be a good one as it's just simple carnival type games which you can just mes around in.
Please State Your Name is a VR animated short story which you can just sit and watch.
Little VR Cinema would be great for putting them in all different kinds of 360 videos.
Surge is a good little 5min experience, but just make sure the volume isn't too high as it's basically like being inside a music video.
Guided Meditation VR would be good for just sitting in calming environments.
I'm sure there's plenty more as steam is just full of little experiences to enjoy.

You can setup playlists as well, so the games/experiences will play one after the other for a set amount of time and then finish. Handy if you've got time limits to stick to.

You could definitely plug in a projector to display what the user is seeing. If you do that it would probably be a good idea to have some speakers too so they can hear, as it's nowhere near as good sitting in silence whilst the person in VR can hear everything.

Hopefully that's a start for you. Good luck with getting the funding and hope everything works out with the project :)
 
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