Author Archives: Bernie Garrett

VR and Pain Applications at the Canadian Pain Society Conference

A range of clinical studies and work around the use of virtual reality (VR) in the clinical management of pain will be discussed at the Canadian Pain Society Annual Conference in Vancouver on 27th May 2016 at 11:00 at the Regency Hyatt Hotel. See: http://www.canadianpainsociety.ca/events/Sessions.aspx?id=764173 for more details.

UBC and SFU researchers obtain $500K grant to explore VR in cancer survivor pain

Dr. Bernie Garrett, Dr. Tarnia Taverner of UBC School of Nursing and Dr. Diane Gromala of the School of Interactive Arts and Technology, SFU have been successful in obtaining a grant of $487,296 to explore the use of virtual reality (VR) as an adjunctive pain relieving therapy in cancer survivors.

This generous funding by a lock charitable foundation will allow the further exploration of the use of VR therapeutics as explored in Dr Garrett and Taverners pilot case series in 2015-16.

This project will commence in July 2016 through to 2019, and will recruit 100 cancer survivors with chronic pain, to trial the use of VR in their own homes to help manage their pain. Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) studies will also be undertaken to explore neurological activity with VR as a part of the project.

Contact Bernie Garrett for further details.

May 20th, 2016

VR and AR in the News

VR and AR applications are certainly becoming more prominent in the news recently (also with much hype from some manufacturers). Here are a couple of more interesting items:

BBC News: Can AR help us improve reality? Showcases some of the potential of AR technologies, but also illustrates some of the gimmick approaches, and hype where the practical technology is far behind what is being demonstrated!

Hand Gesture Control with Leap Motion VR Controls: Illustrates a very impressive technology for following hand movement in a VR environment.

Bernie Garrett

Welcome!

Welcome to the augmented and virtual reality health applications website. This site is designed to support and disseminate the research and development of health applications using these technologies at UBC. There are a number of projects at the university exploring the potential for these new technologies here, and we welcome contributions and membership by researchers or those with an interest in the field.

tedmedHRHoward Rose, one of our partners talks about VR and health at TedMed 2014.

 

 

Bernie Garrett
UBC School of Nursing,
August 2015