Role of virtual reality in the life of ageing population

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) has been on the scene for several decades already. Its first applications were in gaming. However, hardware and software were expensive and thus not for everybody. Since that time, the development of technology proceeded fast and enabled to open new application areas for VR. Currently many commercial systems are available for gaming, training and education, simulations, design, and also for medical purposes. In the article we focus on VR applications in healthcare. First we present existing commercial solutions, and research studies showing the potential of VR in healthcare. In recent years there have appeared many interesting projects and applications aimed at ageing population as target users. We present examples of such projects. Based on our previous experience and after analysis of available solutions, we propose a conceptual architecture od software environment for development of such applications and discuss their potential use. Finally, the implementation of the proposed architecture for interactive application of experience sets is described.