About the Knowledge Base

About the Knowledge Base



Overview


This Healthcare Knowledge Base provides ideas, tips and examples for healthcare professionals to integrate immersive technologies in their practice, based on the experience and feedback acquired through the multiple programs developed by Broomx partners and clients. It aims to become a dynamic database paving the way to an open and comprehensive community - your feedback is invaluable!

This guide assumes that you have or will soon have a MK360 device set up and running, an active Essential Plan and basic knowledge on operating the MK360. It covers the general benefits of using immersive technologies in the healthcare and wellbeing sector, information on how the Broomx ecosystem can facilitate a seamless integration with a wide range of projects, some previous related use cases and instructions on how to use and combine the exercises to create a therapeutic session according to your patients’ specific needs and profiles.




Immersive Technologies for Healthcare


According to doctor Brennan Spiegel, Director of Health Services Research at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles (USA) and one of the major authorities in this space, “many people think of Virtual Reality as related to videogames and entertainment devices, but when it is used in a positive manner, VR can bring great benefits for human health”. 


Virtual Reality (VR) is defined by Burbules (2006) as a computer generated tridimensional, interactive and multi sensorial simulation. In recent years, VR has been used throughout various health-related applications including medical training, neurologic rehabilitation and intervention in mental healthcare. In the latter, VR has proven most effective in the treatment of a wide range of disorders (phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc) as well as in improving the emotional wellbeing of different profiles of patients, their relatives as well as healthcare professionals.


The report Growing Value of XR in Healthcare developed by the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK has identified a total of 20 clinical sectors in which immersive technologies are having a great impact.






Broomx Ecosystem for Healthcare



The Broomx ecosystem is particularly suited for healthcare and medical applications adaptable to sectors as diverse as mental health, paediatrics, neurology, palliative cares and geriatric and psychosocial attention. It provides a combination of hardware devices, software services and immersive contents which allow to create cross-sensorial experiences in real spaces. Those tools developed specifically constitute an attractive solution to improve emotional wellbeing and pain relief, generate exercises aimed to stimulate cognitive functions and train adaptive abilities.



Benefits of immersive projections

Immersive projections through the MK devices allow to harness the power of VR and maintain its feeling of presence and interactivity, while avoiding the limitations of headsets in a wide range of healthcare and medical related use cases. Some general benefits are:

  1. Applicability to different areas of health and medical care: psychology, physiotherapy, logopedia, etc.
  2. Multiuser, social experience.
  3. Improved engagement to therapeutic treatment.
  4. Improved motivation and social interaction.


Usage contraindications


Applications of immersive technologies in healthcare are novel. As such, some general contraindications have been deduced from the first studies:
  1. Persons who suffer from epilepsy, febrile seizures during childhood or recurring fainting.
  2. Persons who have a family history of epilepsy.
  3. Persons who have undergone recent neurosurgical intervention.
  4. Persons who have consumed alcohol or recreational drugs in the past 24h.
  5. Persons who have a history of dizziness or motion sickness.


Specific contents


The Broomx Plans give access to an extensive catalogue of immersive content specifically designed for healthcare applications:

  1. Relaxing: abstract soothing video collections designed by Spain’s leading mindfulness experts, guided meditations, natural dreamlike landscapes to explore peacefully.
  2. Stimulating: virtual city walks to stimulate attention and memory, dynamic sporting activities, CGI with high visual and auditory stimuli.
  3. Interactive: gamified challenges to engage with, audio-reactive visuals to train verbalising and participation, use of trackpad for oculomotor coordination.
  4. Liberating: realistic outdoor experiences to escape situations of lockdown and promote socialising.