Lonely seniors find joy in VR vacations: ‘The first time I tried it I saw a city in Spain’

Eighty-one-year-old Georgina Schuldt is not used to being tied up. After Schuldt and her husband retired from their nursing careers, they lived on a boat for eight years and sailed from Canada to Panama. When they came back, they camp in the Pacific Northwest every summer.

But Schuldt’s husband passed away last year. Now she is using a walking aid that cannot travel long distances. She has no interest in getting on a plane or being dependent on someone else to push her into a wheelchair.

Despite all of this, Schuldt was recently able to explore a European city – in virtual reality. Your Florida flat sharing community owns three headsets from MyndVR, a company that creates VR experiences for people aged 65 and over.

“When I tried it for the first time, I saw a city in Spain. We were right in the city square and there was a tourist walking directly in front of me! I could have touched it,” Schuldt said. “I thought it was wonderful.”

The day we talked, she had just used the headset to visit a forest full of colorful autumn leaves.

“It takes you out of your own environment and takes you somewhere else,” Schuldt said. “It is very pleasant to go back and see things that you love but that you can no longer achieve.”

Virtual reality is one of many technologies that reduce loneliness and social isolation among seniors that researchers have described as an epidemic in and of itself.

According to a study by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine from 2020, almost a quarter of adults aged 65 and over are considered to be socially isolated. Research shows that older people who feel lonely are more likely to experience anxiety, depression, suicide, heart disease, stroke, and dementia, a risk that rivals smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity.

“If loneliness persists and is sufficiently serious, it can and does have negative health consequences,” said Dr. Dilip Jeste, Senior Associate Dean for Healthy Aging and Senior Care and a respected professor of psychiatry and neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego.

The good news? You can make changes to avoid these results, Jeste said. And technology can be part of a broader puzzle that enables the growing American senior population to live a more connected and healthier life.

A three-hour (virtual) tour

Virtual reality companies that focus exclusively on senior citizens find their way into senior citizens’ shared apartments to escape the lull of everyday life or to connect with family members.

Even if seniors live in a community surrounded by others, they could slowly withdraw and be isolated, said Chris Brickler, CEO of MyndVR. “As their appeal declines due to age and illness, we need to find other ways to keep them stimulated and engaged,” he said.

The MyndVR headset and platform offer more than 200 virtual travel, recreation, music and art experiences for older adults living in senior communities or at home. These experiences can act as reminiscence therapy by helping them remember parts of their past, or as engagement therapy by connecting them to others in their community or family, Brickler said.

“We see families engaging in the same conversations week after week and slowly making their visits nerve-wracking,” he added.

Doing something new together can give the visitors new energy and give seniors the opportunity to have more substantive conversations, he said.

Traditional therapy typically costs between $ 100 and $ 200 per session. A single-user license for the MyndVR platform costs less than $ 1,000 a year, while a multi-user license for community packages costs an average of $ 5,000 a year, Brickler said. Costs include hardware, VR content library, and customer and technical support. MyndVR now has tens of thousands of users in 40 states, he added.

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Beyond Zoom: Virtual meeting rooms

Some companies, like AARP Innovation Labs, use VR to keep older people connected to their families at a slightly lower cost.

The latest product is Alcove, a virtual reality house where seniors can meet with relatives to talk, play games and explore different experiences.

VR provides a sense of presence and immersion that other technologies don’t, said Cezara Windrem, VR director at AARP Innovation Labs and product manager at Alcove. “It could enable families to get together and overcome cost, time and mobility constraints,” said Windrem.

AARP Innovation Labs developed Alcove in collaboration with Rendever, a startup that creates VR experiences for senior communities. An initial 2019 release has been released, which is available for free on the Oculus Go platform (and will come to Oculus Quest later this summer as well).

Seniors can simultaneously invite up to four people to a virtual mountain chalet surrounded by trees and grass. Discover four different rooms and even decorate the house with your own photos.

The app offers a guided tour of Paris, practicing meditation or playing checkers or chess. You can take older relatives on real adventures. It can now be downloaded and used for free (provided you have an Oculus Go VR headset that costs $ 149), with no ads. However, as more content is added, the company may consider a microtransaction system for premium VR experiences, so you might pay a few dollars for a top-notch tour.

The virtual element could make hanging out with grandma more attractive to younger people who can connect with them in this new medium, said Windrem.

“We know how much the younger generations are attracted to this new technology,” she said. “It is wonderful if they can find a connection through this new medium and share their love for it with older family members, but on their own terms through experiences that everyone can relate to.”

Family on request

But what about older people who need physical help that virtual reality cannot offer – like help with grocery shopping or doing household chores?

For seniors, dad is an option, a service that offers older adults “Family on Demand” by combining them with “Papa Pals”. College students who can provide camaraderie and support with tasks such as grocery shopping and driving. These students are also paid.

CEO Andrew Parker was inspired by his grandfather to create dad who needed help but was isolated. He didn’t drive, but he didn’t need traditional home care services either. Papa was launched in 2018 and is now available in 25 states. The company has more than 7,000 Papa Pals on the platform, Parker said.

The majority of members receive dad as a free benefit through insurance carriers or Medicare Advantage programs. Papa Pals have to go through a background check and verification process. Parker says fewer than 10% of applicants are hired. But they can earn between $ 12 and $ 16 an hour depending on what kind of tasks they do. The company is now opening applications to students, also because unemployment has risen so much as a result of COVID-19.

The company usually registers visits to Papa Pals once or twice a week. Tasks include everything from grocery shopping to driving to doctor’s appointments and learning how to set up technology. One member asked a Papa Pal to accompany her to a wedding because she did not want to burden her family. Another, a former Tour de France competitor, asked his buddy to take him on a bike ride – and quickly outperformed his college-age companion, Parker said.

These visits now look different due to the corona virus. Papa Pals help with contactless grocery deliveries. And most of the visits from comrades have shifted to phone calls or video chats.

“We teach older adults how to use technology in ways they were unlikely to be ready for before,” said Parker. “The stigma of being alone is less of a problem now that the whole world is isolated.”

Cure loneliness

Despite the efforts of the technology industry, there isn’t a single research-supported remedy for loneliness, said Jeste. The solution must be multidimensional and include physical activity, exercise and social connections. Technology can help, but it won’t solve the problem alone, he added.

“The technology industry has traditionally focused on younger people,” said Jeste. “Older people don’t want anything cool with a thousand uses. They want something really simple. We need technology that is suitable for seniors.”

Back in Florida, Schuldt agrees. The simplicity of the VR platform is a key factor in why she enjoyed the experience so much, she said. “You just put it on your head,” Schuldt said. “You don’t have to learn a whole bunch of tricks to get it going.”

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