Virtual Reality Lets Younger Individuals Experience What It Is Like to Be 74

Embodied Labs, a company that develops virtual reality labs for healthcare training, has created a virtual reality program entitled “We Are Alfred” that allows young medical students to feel what it is like to be an elderly individual who is experiencing macular degeneration and hearing loss. Perhaps this will be able to bring higher levels of empathy to the field of healthcare and will facilitate the creation of positive relationships between younger medical professionals and their elderly patients.

This program utilizes a virtual reality headset, along with headphones and a hand-tracking device to engage users in a live action story from the perspective of a 74 year old man named Alfred. The “We Are Alfred” lab consists of six different scenes, each approximately seven minutes in length, that demonstrate Alfred’s experiences. The same company that developed this lab is also in the process of creating “The Betty Lab”, which will arrive in September of 2017 and highlight formative experiences of a woman afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease.

While the population of individuals over 64 is steadily increasing, the average medical student is only 24 years old. The team at Embodied Labs that is continuing to create these types of programs is striving to bridge this age gap and make it more likely that younger medical professionals will be able to empathize with older patients and deliver care that caters more to their needs.