IMMERSIVE ROOM THERAPY
development could possibly enhance different modalities of treatment.”
Timely research
This research is timely, since as while immersive interactive virtual environment (IIVE) technologies are maturing to a point of being easily configurable in a range of spaces, including hospitals, care units, and schools, a lack of evidence still exists on their efficacy and integration into mental healthcare settings. Immersive Interactive’s Co-director, Peter Salt, adds: ‘When Tor approached us in 2017, his work was quickly regarded by those who viewed its potential from within the healthcare sector as ‘game-changing’ and ‘disruptive’ in terms of what fresh, innovative applications adopting this type of technology are capable of. Our company installs immersive rooms at a global level in more than 30 countries, as far apart as Canada and the Middle East, and we are now building solid working UK collaborations with Alliance Psychological Services in the North East.
“As a UK-based technology company entering new markets, we are over the moon having secured this partnership. Our work will now involve more cross-regional discussion between the North East and West, with possibilities to continue to refine the prototypes and potentially lead toward clinically robust trials, enhanced
very much through the engagement with Northumbria University. It is early days, and we’re very much at a low-fidelity prototype stage, but signs are showing inspiring promise, and as our understanding evolves, so will the reaches of our immersive product.”
A ‘world-leading’ expert in HCI Overseeing the study as lead supervisor is Professor John Vines, a world-leading expert in HCI, whose research focuses on co-design, and studying how people experience digital technologies in their everyday lives. John Vines is a Professor in the School of Design at Northumbria University, who works in the
interdisciplinary field of human-computer interaction, where his research explores the use of co-design and participatory approaches in developing new digital technologies, often with a focus on new systems that have participatory elements designed into them. He works on a wide range of subjects and topics where design and technology have an important role to play. This work started a decade ago with a series of projects on ageing and later life, and he has since worked on activities related to mental health, chronic health condition self-management, financial inclusion, and resilience and social care. The Professor says: “Tor’s project has great potential to transform how mental health
Professor John Vines is ‘a world-leading expert in HCI, whose research focuses on co-design, and studying how people experience digital technologies in their everyday lives’.
interventions are delivered by clinical staff, while also giving greater control and autonomy to patients in their healthcare journey. The project is a great example of the HCI and digital design research we have at Northumbria, which looks at complex situations from the perspective of multiple disciplines, and focuses on applied, design-oriented projects in collaboration with society and industry.”
n
Immersive Interactive is a Southport-based technology company that specialises in the installation of immersive rooms. Tor Alexander Bruce
Tor Alexander Bruce is a doctoral researcher at Northumbria University, positioned in the Faculty of Design as part of North Lab within a department called Co-Create, which specialises in co-design in the research field of human computer interaction (HCI). He joined the university from an early career in journalism, and a long- standing CEO position in the third sector. In 2001 he founded a charity called Eye Of The Fly, which saw the transformation of a 10,000 ft2 derelict factory into an arts-education facility. The charity recruited a broad- database of North East-based creative facilitators, with a mission to provide more than 5,000 young people facing barriers to learning and living with a platform for personal development. Having encountered and engaged many young people facing challenged lives, his current study interest in ‘childhood trauma’ stemmed from this. He has fundraised in excess of £500,000 in support of his work, also directing and producing a documentary, The 3000 Mile Swim, and published a book in 2017 entitled The Suicide Fight, currently available across the UK’s Prison Service and in The British Library. He is interested in multi- and transdisciplinary research into the use of space, how people access and navigate it, and how it can be co-designed with a social purpose in a real-world context, particularly where this can assist, empower, or alleviate, human suffering towards eudaimonia (human flourishing). His current research is exploring the role and efficacy of human- centred emerging technologies through immersive interactive virtual environments (IIVEs), in the context of mental health interventions.
36 JULY 2020 | THE NETWORK
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38
