Suffolk County Council is proceeding with plans to use virtual reality technology in supporting people with dementia.
Its digital care team is working with Spark Emerging Technology on the development of an app to work with VR headsets – which it hopes to have in use by the autumn – and to produce a series of interactive films.
The council identified the potential to use VR in dementia care in 2021, seeing that it could help people restore positive memories and stimulate interaction with others around them.
Since then it has been obtaining legal advice and running the procurement that led to an £80,000 contract with Spark, followed in March of this year by the production of the Synergy co-production group.
Project lead Mark Tattum-Smith told UKAuthority that the plan has gained momentum from the prices of consumer VR headsets such as Oculus becoming more affordable, and that the team has been running workshops with people with dementia, family carers and a Care UK care home in Bury St Edmunds.
It is developing the Reverie app, to work with Occulus Quest headsets, in response to its view that most existing VR technology has not been created to meet the needs of elderly people with dementia and their carers.
Different set-up
“Delivering VR to people with dementia requires a different kind of set-up,” Tattum-Smith said. The devices already available are autonomous headsets in which the carer cannot see what the user is looking at, while the Suffolk team wanted one that came with a tablet that could control the VR.
“That then enables a platform for supported virtual reality delivery, which is what we think is needed for this technology to be properly accessible to the people who could benefit from it most. For people with dementia it often comes with challenges and we felt it needs a more supportive platform.”
He added: “We’re hoping for the carers’ view of the experience to have a lot more in it than in some of those that are on the market. We will be making use of some stuff that is in the back end of Oculus to ensure the carer has insight into what the person is looking at and how they are experiencing that film.”
There are also ambitions for the design of the app to allow for personalisation including a customer profile and details of the content they would want to view.
The team has a stock of three headsets and tablets which it will take to care home and other settings to encourage their use with Reverie. It has a contract with Spark – to run for three years with options for three more – for a perpetual discount for itself and care bodies in Suffolk, while the company will offer it on a commercial basis to other local authorities.
Tattum-Smith said there have been conversations with neighbouring councils, and the project has received input from the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust.
Film competition
Alongside work on the app, Suffolk has engaged Spark to produce a series of 10 films that would be suitable and stimulating for people with dementia. It has begun work on the first, set in the seaside resort of Southwold.
It has also launched a national VR Challenge Competition for ideas on more diverse content from around the UK.
"Our hope is to energise a community of creative 360 content creators who are motivated to produce stimulating and appropriate films for the benefit of people with dementia," Tattum-Smith said.
It involves five tiers, including groups such as people affected by dementia and further education students, and six content categories. Entrants have the opportunity of winning a VR headset, 360 camera and a year’s subscription to Reverie.
The team’s research will also feed into the creation of the films.
More than passive experience
“What we have from the research is that people will not want just a passive experience, but something in which they will have some choice and control, and different routes through the content,” Tattum-Smith said. “With Sparks’ know-how we’ll be able to integrate that in the post-production.”
The council has also obtained funding for three InstaVR 360 cameras that will be first be used to help successful Suffolk based entrants of its competition make their films.
“We are hoping that care settings will get involved in the competition as an exciting activity to do with their residents and attendees, and after the competition they will also use the 360 cameras to create 360 marketing assets of their care environments,” Tattum-Smith said.
“From a digital social work perspective we are then interested in exploring how social work practitioners could make use of the three VR headsets that we will receive through the contract to use these films in their social work practice to help give service users deeper insights into day opportunities or respite placements etc in their area.”
Details of film competition changed 22.6.23 am after clarification
