Why LinkedIn Matters for CEOs

LinkedIn is more than a professional networking site; it’s a platform for connection, visibility, and thought leadership. CEOs who use it effectively can make a lasting impact on their industry and peers. Here’s why LinkedIn is particularly valuable for those in leadership roles:

• Builds Thought Leadership: Posting insightful content and engaging with your network builds your reputation as an industry expert. People want to follow leaders who have something meaningful to say.
• Increases Professional Visibility: LinkedIn allows CEOs to remain visible to a global network of professionals. Whether you’re attracting talent, finding collaborators, or simply sharing your vision, LinkedIn is the space to do it.
• Direct Communication with Decision-Makers: LinkedIn gives you direct access to peers, investors, clients, and even competitors. It’s a platform where you can communicate and engage with others in positions of influence.
• Humanizes Leadership: By sharing your thoughts, ideas, and perspectives, you show a more human side of leadership. This helps to build trust and fosters deeper connections with your audience.

With these benefits in mind, it’s clear that LinkedIn is an important tool for CEOs. But how can you use it effectively without devoting endless hours to it?

A Strategic, Flexible Approach to LinkedIn

The key to using LinkedIn as a CEO is being strategic. You don’t need to spend hours each week posting and commenting; instead, focus on targeted activities that maximize your impact. Here’s an approach that offers flexibility but still delivers results:

1. Polish Your Profile
Your LinkedIn profile is often the first thing people see when they search for you online. It should reflect your leadership, vision, and expertise. Ensure your profile is up-to-date, and think of it as a living document that evolves with your career. Keep it polished, and make sure it aligns with your current professional goals.

2. Post Thoughtful, Value-Driven Content
Posting on LinkedIn doesn’t mean flooding your feed with daily updates. Instead, aim for quality over quantity. One or two posts a week is more than enough to stay relevant. Focus on topics that align with your expertise — industry trends, leadership lessons, or personal reflections on running a business. The goal is to provide value to your network, not just promote yourself.

3. Engage with Your Network
A well-timed comment on a colleague’s post or a thoughtful response to a discussion can be just as impactful as creating your own content. LinkedIn is about building relationships, not just broadcasting. Engage with others, share insights, and contribute to discussions. These interactions build rapport and open doors to potential collaborations.

4. Share Industry Insights
LinkedIn is a great place to share what’s happening in your industry and to offer your perspective on it. Whether it’s a new technological development, a market trend, or a change in regulations, providing your take on the situation helps establish you as a forward-thinking leader. It also positions you as someone who is in the know and actively shaping the future of your industry.

5. Be Selective About Connections
As a CEO, you’ll likely receive a lot of connection requests. Be selective. Focus on building a network of peers, influencers, and people who can add value to your professional journey. It’s not about the number of connections; it’s about the quality of those relationships.

6. Leverage LinkedIn Analytics
LinkedIn provides built-in analytics that allow you to track how your posts are performing and who’s engaging with your content. This data helps you fine-tune your approach over time. Pay attention to which types of posts resonate most with your audience and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Position Yourself as a Thought Leader

Thought leadership isn’t built overnight, but LinkedIn offers a platform where you can showcase your expertise over time. Sharing your insights, engaging with your network, and staying visible on LinkedIn helps to position you as a leader in your field.

Stay Consistent: Regular posting — whether weekly or biweekly — keeps you in front of your audience. The more consistent you are, the more people will start looking forward to your insights.

Elevate Others: A key aspect of leadership is helping others succeed. Highlight your team’s accomplishments, share industry leaders’ work, or comment on important trends. Elevating others will reflect positively on your leadership.

Cultivate Relationships: LinkedIn is ultimately about building relationships. Whether it’s with future collaborators, clients, or even competitors, the platform helps you stay connected to the people who matter in your professional world.

The CEO’s Platform for Influence

LinkedIn is a powerful tool when used with intention. For CEOs, it provides a platform to connect, inspire, and influence. It’s not about managing every little detail yourself but about showing up in a way that reflects your leadership, insights, and expertise. By engaging thoughtfully and staying consistent, LinkedIn can help you build lasting relationships, amplify your voice in the industry, and open the door to new opportunities.

Leveraging LinkedIn is one of the most effective ways to stay connected and relevant in your field. Done right, it positions you as a thought leader who is not only leading a company but also shaping the future of your industry.

Since 2016, NewPath has led the way in exploring VR's potential beyond gaming, focusing on transformative education and therapy. The attached image shows back when we were taping Oculus Rift cords to tables. We've reached deep into underserved communities, taught hundreds of clinicians about VR in practice, held dozens of community events, and innovated with the very first accredited courses about VR and Psychology through the American Psychological Association. Our partnerships span from Kaiser Permanente to San Francisco Libraries, proving digital therapeutic's power in non-gaming contexts. We also created a large directory of family-friendly, non violent VR apps.

Despite our efforts and Meta's declared commitment to "non-gaming XR titles and use cases," our pleas for support have been met with silence. We've reached out more than ten times, proposing collaborations to extend VR's benefits through education and therapeutic applications, yet never even received a response. Our dedication is mirrored in our use of Meta/Oculus hardware for 8 years, highlighting our continued engagement with the platform.

Currently, we're limited to teaching courses to 25+ participants with just three Quest headsets. Our history with Meta hardware, our proven curriculum, and strong partnerships underscore our capacity for broader impact—if only supported as promised.

Meta, we urge you to match your words with action. It's time to embrace the full spectrum of VR's possibilities, beyond gaming, and support initiatives like ours that aim to harness VR for growth, healing, and education. The future of VR is vast; let's explore it together.

#VR #Education #Therapy #Meta #SupportInnovation #VirtualReality

We live in a time where our old canvases are being swapped for screens and brushes for styluses. The digital art revolution has arrived, and it’s influencing creative minds all around the world. Yet, it’s an unfamiliar territory for many, especially those rooted deeply in the traditional art landscape.

Reasons a Traditional Artist Would Want to Explore Digital Art:

1. Unlimited Tools and Mediums: In digital art, you’re not limited by physical supplies. With just a tablet and software, you have access to every color, brush, and texture imaginable. It’s a playground for your creativity.

2. Easy Error Correction: Digital art allows you to make mistakes and correct them easily without damaging the artwork. Features like ‘undo’, ‘redo’, and ‘layers’ can be invaluable in the creative process.

3. Experimentation and Innovation: Digital art offers opportunities to experiment with new forms and mediums like 3D modeling, virtual reality (VR), and augmented reality (AR), broadening the scope of your artistic expression.

4. Sharing and Accessibility: Digital artwork is easily shareable and accessible. It allows you to reach a global audience online, opening up opportunities for feedback, collaborations, and even sales.

5. Sustainability: Digital art does not require physical materials, which means no waste or environmental impact. It’s a more sustainable and eco-friendly way to create.

Common Myths About Digital Art:

1. Digital Art Isn’t “Real” Art: There’s a common misconception that digital art is somehow less valid or valuable than traditional art. This is untrue. Art is about expression, creativity, and skill, regardless of the medium used.

2. Digital Art Is “Cheating”: Some people believe that digital art is easier or that it’s “cheating” because it can involve tools like “undo” or pre-made brushes. However, these tools don’t replace skill, they simply provide new ways to apply it.

3. VR and AR Are Only for Gaming: Many assume that VR and AR technologies are exclusively for gaming and entertainment. However, these tools are being used in innovative ways in the art world, allowing artists to create immersive and interactive experiences that push the boundaries of creativity.

I’ve recentlyupdated and improved “Digital Art for Traditional Artists” — to provide you with a roadmap into this new artistic realm. The guide is your compass in the vast digital art landscape, helping you navigate unfamiliar territories without losing sight of the traditional skills you’ve honed over the years.

The journey starts with explaining the basics of digital art — from understanding different software and tools to getting acquainted with new methods of creation. We dive into the nuances of digital painting, explore 3D modeling, and touch upon the marvels of AI and VR in art.

Along the way, we will dispel some common myths about digital art and give you helpful tips to make the transition smoother. The aim is to help you see digital art not as a replacement, but as an extension of your existing artistic practice.

However, the book is not just a technical guide. It delves deeper into the philosophy and ethics of digital art, addressing the challenges and opportunities it presents for traditional artists. This is especially significant in the present times as we see the advent of AI-generated art, bringing about a shift in the artistic paradigm.

The best part? “Digital Art for Traditional Artists” is available as a free download. This isn’t a sales pitch. It’s a heartfelt invitation to join me in exploring this new frontier in art, without any hurdles. I believe in sharing knowledge freely, so we can all grow together as artists in this evolving digital era.

Follow this link to download your free copy of “Digital Art for Traditional Artists”. It’s time to take the leap and discover how the digital world can enrich your artistic practice.

Here’s to the brave new world of digital art!

https://bit.ly/free-digital-art-book

Here is a simple prompt given to Stable Diffusion “red apple”:

Here is the same prompt used with Midjourney 5 (red apple):

Now, here’s the exciting part. You don’t need a fancy VR headset to join in on the fun. Stable Diffusion can be accessed via your computer, making it accessible to artists without VR equipment. All you have to do is visit the Stable Diffusion website, create an account, and you’ll enter a vibrant community of artists and art enthusiasts from all over the world.

Let’s talk about the technology behind Stable Diffusion. It uses a kind of deep generative neural network called a latent diffusion model. The model weights and code have been publicly released, and it can run on most consumer hardware with a modest GPU that has at least 8 GB VRAM. This is a departure from previous models that were only available through cloud services.

A little more detail an interesting things emerge. Here the prompt “japanese apple” was given to Stable Diffusion:

And here, the same prompt “japanese apple” was given to Midjourney 5:

The development of Stable Diffusion was funded and shaped by a start-up called Stability AI, in collaboration with academic researchers and non-profit organizations. It was led by talented individuals like Patrick Esser of Runway and Robin Rombach of CompVis. These brilliant minds invented the latent diffusion model architecture used by Stable Diffusion.

Stable Diffusion was trained on a dataset called LAION-5B, which consists of image and caption pairs scraped from the web. The dataset was created by a German non-profit called LAION, which receives funding from Stability AI. The model went through extensive training using powerful hardware, involving hundreds of GPUs and thousands of hours.

Now, let’s address some limitations. Stable Diffusion works best with images of a specific resolution (it likes 1024 x 1024 pixels), so deviations from that may result in degraded quality. It may struggle with generating accurate human limbs due to limitations in the training data. Additionally, customizing the model for specific use cases requires additional training and high-quality data.

But don’t worry, my friend. Stable Diffusion is a powerful tool that allows you to generate images based on text prompts, modify existing images, and explore various creative possibilities. It’s up to you to unleash your artistic vision and make the most of this incredible technology.

Just remember, with great power comes great responsibility. It’s essential to use Stable Diffusion ethically and respect copyright laws and the rights of individuals depicted in the generated images.

So, my sculptor friend, dive into the world of Stable Diffusion and let your artistic imagination soar to new heights. The possibilities are endless, and I can’t wait to see what you create!

These examples and more are examined in my 6-week workshop. Visit http://www.lisa.io/workshop.

The short story:
VIEW CURRENT META/OCULUS APPS THAT SUPPORT ACHIEVEMENTS or ADD SUPPORTING APPS TO THE LIST

I n April of 2020 there were over 170 apps in the Oculus Store. By April of 2022, there were over 300. With a big increase in the number of people that own virtual reality headsets, particularly the Meta/Oculus Quest versions 1 and 2, people are buying more games. Meta/Oculus Quest headset sales took off at the end of 2020 and they have sold over 10 million units to date.

In fact, people have spent $1 billion in the Oculus store on Quest apps alone. Following this, leaderboards, badges, awards, and achievements have people coming back to games to play again and again.

Achievements are attractive because they track your progress, give you a feeling of accomplishment, allow you to meet other people who play the same games, and let you compete on leaderboards. They are often sharable on social media as well. Do not confuse achievements with “reward boxes.” The difference: Any game you’ve purchased will earn you home reward boxes based on the time spent playing. These are not ‘achievements’ which are achievements determined by the app.

And not all Meta/Oculus apps include these. When a developer adds achievements to an app, the associated store application for that app will show achievements features. For this article, I am primarily discussing the Meta/Oculus Store and the Meta/Oculus Quest headsets.

Adding achievements (for developers):
Unity
Unreal

When you receive an achievement, they are visible only to you when you are logged into your Oculus app. So, how do you share them with others?

You share achievements by clicking the “+Save to VR” button on the achievement within the Oculus app under “Lastest Activity.”

“+ Save to VR” will make the achievement visible on your Oculus home (inside VR) and your Oculus friends will be able to see those achievements. It’s worth mentioning that primary account holders can add up to three other accounts and share applications with others so that achievements can be saved separately in each account.

If all this has you thinking, ‘What other information is in my Meta/Oculus account?” then head over to the PRIVACY CENTER and follow the steps to access ALL OF YOUR DATA.

If you’d like to VIEW CURRENT META/OCULUS APPS THAT SUPPORT ACHIEVEMENTS or ADD SUPPORTING APPS TO THE LIST, you can always return to this page and access those.

I don’t think hardware designers thought too much about how people have to deal with their hair when they are using virtual reality headsets. For many women and some men, headsets are almost impossible to put on with certain hairstyles.

While we’re still waiting for the headset designers to get a clue, we’ve reviewed the most significant problems you might face and provided a few solutions and suggestions on addressing them.

1. Low on top — Hairstyles that are low on top with a wide variety of options for below the ears that work well with virtual reality headsets.

1. Pigtails — Pigtails work for almost any hair length and are a good option for fly-away hair, especially during a lot of movement.

3. Pom-poms — A pom-pom hairstyle can keep the hair off the neck to help maintain cool and comfortable gameplay.

4. A headband — Sweat! It may be an issue if you move a lot or like to workout in VR. A headband works for most hairstyles and helps to keep sweat from dripping down onto your face and into your headset. This can also help keep hair off of the back of your neck.

5. Double top knots — Similar to pom-poms, these also keep the hair off of your neck for longer, more comfortable activity while you’re in the headset.

6. A bandana — If you are especially concerned about messing up your hair, a bandana or hair wrap is a great way to keep that ‘do in place. If the material is absorbent, this can double for moisture-wicking.

7. The trusty ponytail — A workout favorite, a ponytail is a quick way to keep your hair back while you’re in virtual reality. A high, side ponytail also works, so you can rock that 80s hairstyle!

8. A backward baseball hat — Control and balance. Some headsets have a counter-weight problem, and some are having success addressing this with a backward baseball cap worn under the headset.

9. A hairband — Using a hairband to pull back the hair is suitable for short, medium, or long combable hair. While this may not help with sweat, it’s still a good option.

These suggestions are just a start. We know this doesn’t cover every style or hair concern, and we’ll continue to keep our eye out for creative ideas for this common problem, such as the one designed as part of a research project described below.

Arwa Michelle Mboya, a VR programmer and graduate of the MIT Media Lab, wrote an excellent article about the particular challenges VR headsets present to Black hairstyles. She did a study using the Oculus Go, and according to Mboya, “The texture, size, and styling of Black hair was not suitable for the device, and the strap attachment piece kept pulling out at the joints from extensive stretching. I had four headsets for the study that participants used 25 times on average, and each headset “broke” approximately ten times during the study.” As a result, she designed a prototype head strap system for the Oculus Go that you can read about in her article The Oculus Go Wasn’t Designed for Black Hair.

There are three main tool areas to Tilt Brush: File Tools, Colors, and Brushes. If you are familiar with Adobe Photoshop, I call Tilt Brush “Photoshop on a stick” because the tools sit as spinning panels on a stick and you use your other controller to point to these tools and select them. Once you’ve made a selection you can paint with that selection controller/hand.

If you aren’t familiar with Photoshop, no problem! Let’s look at all of the options, starting with all of the exciting brushes you can use. These are the best part of Tilt Brush in my opinion. Start thinking beyond “ink” or “oil paint” (yes, it has those too) but you’re going to be painting with earthly elements like fire, smoke, snow, and electricity and much more!

There are 4 pages of brushes, navigate through them using the arrows at the bottom of the brush pages.

Page 1 includes these brushes: Oil Paint, Ink, Thick Paint, Wet Paint, Marker, Tapered Marker, Pinched Marker, Highlighter, Flat, Tapered Flat, Pinched Flat, and Soft Highlighter brushes.

Page 2 includes these brushes: Light, Fire, Embers, Smoke, Snow, Rainbow, Stars, Velvet Ink, Wave Form, Splatter, Duct Tape, and Paper.

Page 3 includes these brushes: Coarse Bristles, Dr. Wigglez, Electricity, Streamers, Hypercolor, Bubbles, Neon Pulse, Cell Vinyl, Hypergrid, Light Wire, Chromatic Wave, and Dots

Page 4 includes these brushes: Petal, Icing, Toon, Wire, Spikes, Lofted, Disco, Comet, Shiny Hull, Matt Hull, Unlit Hull, and Diamond.

Next, here is the Color Picker. You can view the Color Picker as a circle or a square and find tones and colors. You can also save colors by clicking the plus sign “+” below the color wheel when you have a preferred color selected and go on adding those to make up a nice palette.

Here are the File Tools which are for Saving and Uploading or Clearing your sketch.

Here are the Main Tools for Erasing and Selecting your strokes, Teleporting, and using the Mirror to make reflections and the Straightedge to make perfectly straight lines.

Lastly, here are Advanced Tools to change the Environment, play with the lighting, Backdrop, use Guides (shapes you can use to create perfect circles and other shapes), and the Poly Library which are models other people have made that you can pull into your sketches.

I hope this has been helpful! There is much more to learn about Tilt Brush. For great videos on How To Tilt Brush see videos by Sabby Lighf here:

What would you like to learn next? Send me a note!

Early applications of the technology were in designing vehicle simulators. The technology was mainly used for training military personnel, pilots, and astronauts; but largely remained out of the public eye. The first applications of VR in medical teaching occurred in the 1990s with colonoscopy and upper gastrointestinal tract endoscopy simulation. Today, VR is being used to detect and treat psychological and neurological conditions and the questions are why and is it better than current methods. The answer is yes, and here’s why.

First, VR simulates real life very “convincingly”, so convincingly that your brain remembers VR as if it were real life. A notable 2009 Stanford study showed that preschool students surveyed 5 days after a VR experience of them swimming with whales believed that the experience was a real memory. They believed they actually swam with whales. Younger minds tend to be more impressionable but this begins to show you how powerful VR is.

Jeremy Bailenson’s Four Reasons to Test in VR

Jeremy Bailenson, founder of Stanford’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab and author of “Experience on Demand”, states four reasons for testing something in virtual reality. He says you should build something in VR if otherwise, it would be:

1. Dangerous
2. Expensive
3. Impossible
4. Counterproductive

If something were dangerous like spiders or the plank experience, VR would make sense. To address the fear of flying, or reproducing an auditorium of people to practice speaking in front of would be quite expensive compared to a VR experience you could do again and again. To create a game where you shoot frogs in space would be impossible. Finally, it may be counterproductive to recreate role-playing between domestic abuse partners.

However, there are many other reasons to build in the immersive environment and many reasons why you would diagnose psychological and neurological conditions using VR.

VR for Real-Time Observation and Modification

One of the benefits of virtual technologies is that of the therapist’s ability to monitor the patient’s activity. Some systems can be used to identify emotional facial expressions in patients with psychosis, or how to pick up other visual cues by watching the user or using heat mapping software. In this way, the therapist can be responsive to the patient and adjust the therapy in real-time in some cases.

VR for Testing Consistency

Virtual reality allows one to create a consistent, error-free environment or environments that can be customized for your assessment conditions. In the VR environment, you have complete control and can repeat simulations with finite accuracy and consistency. This combined with the real-life likeness of surroundings and objects, provides control in order to make assessments.

VR for Privacy and Removing Fear of Personal Judgment

There is some evidence to show that people will divulge more information to an AI or scripted avatar than they will to one embodied by a person or to a person directly. They also prefer to interact with an avatar of their own sex. This has to do with the feeling of being judged, which patients feel less of when dealing with an AI avatar.

VR for Gamification During Research

VR can provide patients with added motivation by adding gaming factors. This motivational aspect can lead to more accurate results and deeper engagement by participants. Gamification in VR is especially compelling, again because of the realism. For generations, game theory has been developed and refined and this psychology can transfer to VR, particularly in the dynamics surrounding how to keep the user engaged through each step or stage and for gathering emotional feedback.

VR for Safe Psychological Activation

There are other reasons, too, ie many therapeutic methods in vivo encourage you to put yourself in a state of stress, anxiety or PTSD, such as exposure therapy for agoraphobia or fear of crowds which include actually exposing yourself to crowds of people, perhaps activating a panic or anxiety attack you can’t escape easily. If you were doing this therapy in VR, you could immediately remove the headset and address the emotions.

Creating Specialized Scenarios in VR to Detect Psychological or Neurological Conditions

To answer more on detection, Greek researchers in 2015 built a cognitive training game for patients with mild cognitive impairment, something that comes before Alzheimer’s. This can detect memory loss by presenting scenarios that are increasingly complex such as financial planning.

When compared with existing cognitive tests, VR is showing great promise in helping to diagnose and help with memory. Cambridge University’s Dr. Dennis Chan tested participants’ spatial navigation and memory by having them don an HTC Vive headset, follow an L-shaped path in a virtual environment (initially mapped out by cones), and then trace their footsteps back to their starting point without the help of any markers. Chan’s team reported that the VR-based navigation test was more accurate in diagnosing mild Alzheimer’s-related impairment than traditional “gold-standard” cognitive tests, such as figure recall and symbol tests.

Here at NewPath we are also inspired by Adam Gazzaley’s work at UCSF’s Sandler Neuroscience Center. Some of this research says that essentially as we get older, we lose the ability to ignore distractions. Adam’s research has shown that you can train the elderly brains to concentrate and focus, through gaming mechanics, improving memory. His research has also shown that video games can increase cognitive ability.

VR and Biometrics to Determine Psychological and Neurological Conditions

Both neurological and psychological conditions may present themselves physically, hence the warranted excitement about biometrics and certainly those are being utilized for detection, but there are many issues to consider in this area.

Cubicle Ninjas used the heart rate tracking in concert with their VR meditation application called Guided Meditation VR. Users would attempt to lower their heart rate while using the Samsung Gear VR headset integrated with biometrics, which was HIPAA-compliant. (Thank you for the correction, Josh.) Some of the issues with using these devices together become evident right away — privacy, user education, sizing, consistent results, and shared data across both apps. The VR application needs to be integrated, and HIPAA-compliant. Companies need to think these things through. Cubicle Ninjas removed this feature in 2018 due to “increased regulation around biometric data.” they said. Another problem is the specificity to the hardware. An app that is specific to a headset, specific to a biometric device for the app? That’s like a spoon that only works for hot carrots.

Detection of Psychological Conditions Through AI

NewPathVR is working on an AI-enabled AR/VR product that assesses your depression level upon intake of your therapy session. Currently a cold, numeric assessment, we’ve taken an avatar, meant to be one of many you could choose from, who asks you questions using natural language and a more personable interaction that we believe will generate more accurate answers and engaged patients, helping patients and clinicians and decreasing healthcare costs.

We also just held our 2nd Annual VR Wellness Hackathon, and one team created a prototype for an app that allows you to externalize and identify visually your anxiety or depression or the emotion you are experiencing with colored and textured brushes in VR and then interact with it by lighting it on fire, pushing it far away, erasing it, or just giving it a hug. By seeing your emotions as external notions rather than as ourselves, as we sometimes say “I am anxious”, and that is an identifier, but by seeing the emotion outside of ourselves, we are better able to act upon feelings.

Many people are excited about facial recognition. The problem with facial recognition at this time is that the VR headsets inhibit recognition of the full face. Eye tracking is something that you might see come out now incorporated into some of the headsets, but again, we’re edging into the business of your bodily health information. Pupillary dilation, for example, says a lot about people and we are definitely headed into Minority Report territory — it’s the merging of these two that is a delicate weaving we’re seeing.

VR Compared to Other Methods of Research Recording Methods

VR is certainly more accurate than human recording methods, because of pilots errors and more. But beyond that, beyond say a computer program, why is a VR environment better at diagnosing than a mobile app, for instance? It’s because of the touch points. It has the potential to be a better diagnostic tool because of this, a better education tool, a better change tool.

Put it this way. If TV was a seal, and computers were maybe an octopus, VR is a jellyfish. It can touch you everywhere!

Because you are PART of the experience of VR, VR can connect to you in so many more ways. You are IN it. VR is experiential.

The reason we believe that VR is such a powerful tool for psychology is that memories and behaviors are formed from experiences. And VR is the first “experiential” medium. We can present experiential environments and present experiences for people and form memories, writing neural networks to change behaviors once people remove the headset. That’s a major driving principle and theory for us at NewPathVR.

Our team built an app here for role-playing in which you choose actors and scenes and role-play past memories to do just this. Users record dialog and then role-play conversations from those memories to reform memories and change narratives in their lives to which they may have formed maladapted behaviors and coping mechanisms that don’t suit their present-day relationships and healthy behaviors.

Dr. Brian Chau, a physician who writes about new medical technology, says, “The key here is data — we need validated measurements” to show VR is comparable to or better than traditional methods, he says. Continued partnerships between clinicians and VR developers are needed to move the technology” from the lab bench to the clinical bedside. NewPathVR agrees.

Why Psychological and Neurological Conditions Go Undiagnosed

Mental Health is a silent epidemic. For example,1 in 5 people have depression, 70% of these are between the ages 18–25 per the CDC in 2018. Eight (8) million people die each year due to mental illness. Mental health is not spoken about or given as much funding as physical illness, so it is harder to find research and support and find new more effective, ways to solve problems for this area.

Traditional techniques do not always work. It is difficult to diagnose mental illness due to issues of stigma, lack of mental healthcare workers, expense, and the nature of the illnesses themselves which pose inconsistencies and challenges. Individuals vary in responses to traditional treatments and for some people it is a lifelong commitment (e.g. there are many patients who cannot afford to keep up long term therapy, especially people who are more disadvantaged, most at risk and most in need, and government counseling services cannot possibly reach everyone) and although through community outreach programs it is possible to deliver these services to many more people, some people tend to be more closed off and find it difficult to connect with traditional processes or it can take them a while to do it.) In these situations, VR could offer a better solution as it addresses issues such as expense, accessibility, and stigma.

The Psychological Dangers of VR

Yes, there are dangers to consider. As one example, I mentioned the strategy of “activation” in order to practice skills during your stress state so you will readily be able to call up those skills during your next stress state. This is often done under the supervision of a therapist. Developers need to consider how to contain a user’s experience in this regard when a therapist is not present.

When subjecting individuals to tests intended to bring out symptoms associated with panic or psychosis, there is a danger that VR could provoke or cause these symptoms in people who would have otherwise never exhibited them. In other words, there is, in fact, the risk that VR could cause psychiatric symptoms, such as PTSD, in healthy individuals.

There are several other important things to consider when adding VR to a clinician’s toolkit. Practicality, privacy, safety and more. NewPathVR teaches courses on these topics precisely. We are the only company approved to teach accredited courses on VR Psychology for the practical and clinical use of VR with patients. We teach practitioners about the guidelines for the different headsets, the research behind conditions being treated with VR successfully and areas that are still gray. VR applications available for each headset, pricing and options and solutions that suit individual or organizational scenarios are also covered. We teach safety, what population will be using the technology, app insurability, sanitization, we cover all of this. Importantly, which applications are for use with a clinician and which apps people can use at home on your own.

We also believe that standards and guidelines need to be developed for XR across the board, usability, and ratings, for example, and we are familiar with some associations working on this.

I wrote an article about the responsibility of VR developers in 2016 to try to shed light on this topic. This indicates that the tool has to be used with care and caution, particularly with the entering and exiting of an application (the “handling”, I call it, or “containing” some people say) however, the fortitude of the platform also translates to its positive effects, and when using it to treat and enhance mental health, it can have enormous benefits for an individual.

In summary, VR provides an excellent opportunity for optimized testing and detection of psychological and neurological conditions. There are important things researchers and clinicians must keep in mind with this incredibly powerful technology when doing so, and working with experienced professionals is a good way to avoid some of the pitfalls inherent in this newly emerging, but very promising, technology.

• Originally published at newpathvr.com.

I found out about my breast cancer on my 43rd birthday at 8 am. The phone call woke me up. I thought it may have been my dad, calling to sing me happy birthday. “This is Kaiser. We’re calling to tell you that your test showed that you are positive for cancer in your left breast. We recommend a mastectomy We have an opening on Thursday. Would you like to schedule it?”

Um, can I get a second opinion?

“You can,” she responded, “but you don’t want to wait long, it’s very aggressive.”

After a second and third opinion, I took the Thursday appointment and had a mastectomy. I would love to tell you how brave I was, how quickly I recovered, and what a poster child I am for how to approach breast cancer as a patient. But the story is the exact opposite. I went in totally uninformed. I went in with cringed eyes and phenomenal stress. There was no time, and no one there to explain it adequately. It was terrifying. I had barely enough time to search Google to determine which kind of breast cancer it was and what my chances were for surviving. I didn’t know how to find information about what the process was going to be, what my options were, what recovery would be like, or how this would impact me or my family. I was completely in the dark.

The whole process was so quick, there was no time to think about the decisions I was making. We were given pamphlets and a page with checkboxes and if we needed more time to decide, we were left alone in a room to discuss it (and look things up on Google), but I mean, Jesus. Both breasts, just one? Reconstruction or not? Saline or silicone? Tummy tuck add-on (for real, yes, no charge)? Is 11 am good for you?

“You’re so brave,”

“You’re so brave,” people kept saying. That’s a nice thought. I want to be someone that others can look up to, someone who weathered the storm with a stiff upper lip, but I’m afraid I let everyone down on that count. I was in a panic most of the time, I cried after sometimes in confusion about what was happening to my body, sometimes just out of fear of what would happen next. I was a total nuisance to the nurses and doctors, calling on them constantly with questions and concerns and escalating my issues to their supervisors when I didn’t like the answers or treatment I received.

When I got home, I couldn’t stand to look at the scars so I showered in the dark for months. The PTSD from the surgery and procedures afterward did not fade really. I didn’t want to be touched. My self-confidence started to suffer. My very understanding husband was doing whatever he could to support me in my healing, but I kept falling into despair and self-loathing, I didn’t feel whole anymore. Year after year I would watch the breast cancer walk on TV and wonder why I hadn’t bounced back so effortlessly they way the spokeswomen had, in their bright pink t-shirts with ribbons pinned to them. I looked for breast cancer survivor support groups and found two within an hour’s drive. One was for young women under 40. I was 43. The other required that you leave a voice message so I did and no one called me back.

3%

Statistically speaking, there is a 3% chance that I will have cancer in my right breast in the future. Doesn’t seem like a lot but….the chances of winning the National Lottery are 1 in 45,057,474. And I’ve played that, probably, 20 times in my lifetime. Every year since the surgery, when I receive a call from my Kaiser nurse telling me it is time for my annual mammogram and women’s exam, an anvil drops into my stomach. Time to play again.

I schedule a day that I have no meetings because I know that I will be so psychologically and physically triggered that I shouldn’t plan anything else. I usually plan to get cupcakes or ice cream afterward so I have something to look forward to and reward myself (something leftover that my mother used to do for me, I still do for myself).

When cupcakes aren’t enough

We promised you the technology is evolving and this year Oculus came out with a phone-free, tether-free headset with a nice resolution that runs apps that ran on the Samsung Gear VR, which required an expensive phone. I’ve been singing its praises for months, suggesting patients use it in hospital beds, waiting rooms, and doctor’s offices. We even built an Oculus Go application called the Prostate Procedure Guide for patient education and anxiety reduction. I imagine you’re beginning to see some of the origins of our motivations.

At previous exams, I premedicated with anti-anxiety medications and/or recreational drugs. Yes, I’m (not) the portrait of strength and fearlessness, as mentioned. Yet these solutions somehow made me more sensitive to the experience in many ways and that wasn’t productive. This year I am convinced by the extensive research and people I have witnessed and their healing experiences with VR. I have seen and reviewed hundreds of wellness applications on RenewVR and have read hundreds of articles and research papers on the mental health benefits of VR. So I decided to load up my Oculus Go and take it to my appointment.

First was my mammogram. I sat in the waiting room and started an app called Kaleidorium.

I paired the app with my Spotify playlist I use while I make art made up of some current favorite songs (Hearts and Bones, Paul Simon; Let You Love Me, Rita Ora; Wild Things, Alessia Cara; What About Us, Pink) and I watched the beautiful colors change and fly by.

I hear the nurse call my name and forget that I was supposed to be worrying about this procedure. I step into the room with the radiologist to perform the mammogram. She does her thing. I resist the urge to look at the screen but wait for her response. She sees these all day, she knows what’s up. She says it looks good but they’ll contact me in a few days to confirm. I notice that overall I am not so freaked out. Now it’s time for my pelvic exam.

Ladies. Let us speak frankly. One really can’t equally compare a prostate exam to a pelvic exam. I’ll take one of those any day of the week, in fact, well nevermind. Could we more fairly compare it to an alien abduction with a non-consensual probe? Yes, see, several hands just went up in agreement. In a prostate exam, the doctor uses a finger. In a pelvic exam, they start with this:

Wait, you are wondering, are we not past the 1700's? Why yes, that’s true, but we still use steam-punk, friggin’ ice-cold, torture-looking devices and this is just so the doctor can get inside our lady bits, I’m not going to go into what they do once they get in there.

Think cupcakes. Think cupcakes. Think cupcakes.

So, you still get to lie in the same cold slab of weird, paper-covered, stirrup-equipped bench of the 1920’s, thank GOD, thank you SO much! I was left alone to undress and my anxiety started to rise. This procedure can be as brief as 5–15 minutes, but my knees are often times left shaking afterward for hours. This time, when the doctor came in with her assistant, I said, “Give me a moment,”

“I brought my VR headset to help me relax,”

This time I put on an app called Azul. It’s a meditation and mindfulness app that helps you focus.

Instead of looking at the foam panels in the office ceiling and fluorescent light bulbs, I selected a scene, a field with birds in the sky, and I selected the music and laid back. I watched the birds fly in circles.

Before I knew it, she was done. It was that fast. Time flies when you are in VR, people often recount that they thought less time had gone by while they were using it. But in this case, shorter perceived time, no pain, very little discomfort, and no PTSD as I usually have had after this procedure.

As the CEO of NewPathVR, I spend my days evangelizing the psychological benefits of virtual reality. Taking it into my own life is a natural step but one that surpassed my expectations still. I didn’t actually need those cupcakes or meds after all. Virtual reality is a powerful state change tool and remains the most evolutionary force to meet so many industries in years, particularly emotional wellness.

The great news is that I received a clean bill of health. 5 years cancer free!

I recommend the Oculus Go this winter for you, your kids, your friends, and family, believe me, you’ll find uses for it. This spring, you’ll want to grab the Oculus Quest too, for full room-scale VR and higher resolution apps. Here are links to the apps I used but there are hundreds more on renewvr.com.

Kaleidorium: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/go/1700720009953361/

Azul: https://www.oculus.com/experiences/go/1274880599305742/

Virtual Reality for Mammograms and Annual Exam Anxiety was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The technical aspects of discontinued curative care are straightforward. However, the psychosocial and ethical components of transitioning to long-term illness and palliative care are not. Our goal is to apply a holistic approach including clinical research, integration into university curriculum and extended learning, practical versus theoretical training, an interprofessional education series, and resources for staff caregivers and students across all healthcare settings supported by conscious technology.

One of the positive directions of the contemporary healthcare delivery system is the so-called “self-management” movement for patients faced with long-term illness issues. Compelling evidence indicates that active patient participation in the healthcare process has real medical, social, individual and economic benefits. NewPathVR provides psychological resources to patients to address this evidence-backed direction for addressing patient outcomes and costs.

A large market driver for the ever-pressing need for such tools and services is reflected in the growing aging population.

The Aging Population

As a growing number of the population ages, professional care is increasingly rationed, and there is a greater need — and a very favorable cost/benefit outcome — for patients to actively participate in their own care. For example, the Stanford School of Medicine has a workshop based called Chronic Disease Self-Management Program which is a workshop given two and a half hours, once a week, for six weeks, in community settings such as senior centers, churches, libraries, and hospitals. People with different chronic health problems attend together.

Patients who took the program, when compared to those who did not, demonstrated significant improvements in exercise, cognitive symptom management, communication with physicians, self-reported general health, health distress, fatigue, disability, and social/role activities limitations. They also spent fewer days in the hospital, and there was also a trend toward fewer outpatient visits and hospitalizations. These data yield a cost to savings ratio of approximately 1:4. Many of these results persist for as long as three years.”

Patients in these types of programs could also benefit from access to NewPathVR apps, either as part of other programs or as its own programs.

Our long-term illness solutions aim to improve the quality of life of patients facing the problems associated with life-threatening illness, through the prevention and relief of suffering of stress and other issues, physical, psychosocial and spiritual.

Reducing patient anxiety, arming patients with the right information, teaching them to ask the right questions, and encouraging them to take an active role in their palliative care, will result in clinically measurable improvements in psychosocial health, pain control, and quality of life.

There is a growing body of scientific and medical information about the ‘mind-body’ connection which strongly supports NewPathVR’s premise about the benefits of social and psychological resources being available to patients.

Robert Aden PhD. is the ‘father’ of the field of ‘psychoneuroimmunology’ and a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. His initial research, dating back as far as the 1970s, served as the beginning of many subsequent studies that have since mapped the vast communications network among immune cells, hormones, and neurotransmitters. This body of research has found that meditation helps reduce arterial plaque; that social bonds improve cancer survival; that people under stress catch more colds; and that placebos work not only on the human mind but also on supposedly insentient cells.

At the core of Dr. Ader’s breakthrough research was his scientific demonstration that stress worsens illness — sometimes even triggering it — and that reducing stress is essential to health care.

Patients and their families are often exposed to inaccurate and misleading information regarding their illness and care. Information obtained from mass media or printed handouts can exacerbate rather than alleviate patient anxiety. Frequently, the best available source of information, doctors, especially those operating in a highly ‘managed’ system, are not available for discussion, or are inadequately trained to meet educational responsibilities, or provide information overload, or use medical terminology that patients do not understand or retain.

NewPathVR’s goal is to assist a broad population of patients in a way that improves the quality of their lives and the efficacy of their care. Virtual reality offers a new medium by which information can be acquired inefficient, innovative, and powerful ways.

NewPathVR programs and content are designed to close the consultative gap, and yet keep individuals returning to a healthcare system with less anxiety which can offer these better informed and prepared subjects more effective and personalized care.

Our goal is to keep people returning to their professional caregivers with less anxiety and a greater capacity to be treated effectively.

Learn more about us at http://www.newpathvr.com.