A UdeM researcher is launching a examine to check whether or not digital actuality can relieve nervousness and ache in palliative care.
A sunny seaside beneath an azure sky in Mexico, a bustling market in Reykjavik, a glowing lake in Quebec’s Laurentians, a string quartet enjoying Bach…
What if we might provide people in palliative care an entire vary of peaceable, acquainted or exhilarating experiences that they may take pleasure in from the consolation of their chair’ What if such experiences couldn’t solely permit them to journey, uncover, discover and calm down, but additionally lower their nervousness and bodily ache’
Neuropsychologist Jhon Alexander Moreno , a professor in Université de Montréal’s Division of Psychology and a researcher on the Montreal College Institute of Geriatrics Analysis Centre, determined to take up the problem.
Moreno is now getting ready to check the usage of digital actuality headsets on sufferers within the palliative care unit of Hôpital Notre-Dame. Contributors will likely be immersed in movies filmed with a 360-degree digital camera and transported on a very lifelike – however digital – visible and auditory journey. Their ranges of ache and nervousness will likely be measured earlier than and after the expertise.
To create this revolutionary new software, Moreno teamed up with Guillermo Lopez Pérez, a filmmaker and the founding father of Nipper Media, a Montreal firm specializing in creating digital actuality content material. Lopez Pérez filmed the pictures used within the digital experiences after which mixed them with music, voices and particulars of the locations offered.
Rethinking end-of-life care
Jhon Alexander Moreno along with his accomplice Guillermo Lopez Pérez, at Hôpital Notre-Dame.
Credit score: Amélie Philibert, Université de Montréal
Moreno’s thought to make use of this non-pharmacological method got here from a want to assist ease the struggling of individuals on the finish of life.
“The top-of-life expertise might be probably the most emotionally demanding of all’experiences,” mentioned Moreno. “People can expertise appreciable struggling because of not solely bodily ache, but additionally nice existential anguish or anticipatory nervousness about loss of life.”
He identified that palliative care sometimes depends on a mixture of approaches to alleviate bodily, psychological, non secular, existential and social discomfort. In his view, non-pharmacological approaches provide quite a few benefits.
“Medication could cause confusion and intervene with the person’s skill to speak their needs and mirror on what’s occurring to them,” defined Moreno.
“We discover that utilizing a mixture of pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches permits sufferers to work together extra with family members and caregivers, which may have a big effect on shaping their end-of-life expertise.”
Moreno additionally identified that these in palliative care have typically been hospitalized beforehand and so have already spent a very long time in mattress. He sees digital journey as a method for them to flee, cease excited about their scenario and have enjoyable. It provides them “one thing to have a look at aside from the ceiling of their room.”
An expertise for family members too
In the course of the check part, Jhon Alexander Moreno presents his undertaking to volunteers.
Credit score: Amélie Philibert, Université de Montréal
Moreno additionally suspects that digital actuality can profit family members who’re accompanying somebody expensive to them on the finish of life. He’s going to check this by having them additionally placed on a headset and share within the digital expertise. Once more, he’ll measure their nervousness earlier than and after the intervention.
“Going through loss of life might be simply as troublesome for family members. The feelings might be excessive and overwhelming,” mentioned Moreno. “I imagine that digital actuality may also help make the entire expertise much less arduous and traumatic for them.”
Moreno is assured that digital actuality can soothe these about to lose an individual expensive to them, and even probably assist with acceptance and preparation for bereavement.
Fostering social innovation
This examine, entitled “Utilizing digital actuality to handle nervousness and ache in palliative care,” was launched in response to the Quebec authorities’s name for social innovation initiatives geared toward lowering vulnerabilities and social inequalities in well being. It’s being funded by the Ministry of Financial system, Innovation and Power, in partnership with the Ministry of Well being and Social Companies.
