The company has partnered with Agewell, a specialized managed care organization serving New York State
There are now over two decades of research on virtual reality and its effects on various health conditions; which includes behavioral health issues such as anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. What there hasn’t been as much research on how this technology can help older adults, despite the fact that the country is aging rapidly: by 2060, nearly one in four Americans will be 65 or older, the number over 85 will triple and the country will have half a million centenarians.
“It’s not like over the last 25 years there’s been a ton of researchers looking at the elderly population. It’s, quite honestly, a symptom of a much more serious situation in our society, which neglects elder care in general.”, Chris Brickler, Founder and CEO of MyndVR, a provider of VR-based digital therapy experiences designed for the aging population, told VatorNews.
This population is particularly at risk of anxiety, depression, cognitive decline and even an increased risk of death, thanks to isolation, he said, which has been highlighted by the pandemic, but that has always been a problem.
“Tens of thousands of baby boomers turn 65 every day in the United States alone. This is going to strain family and health care resources. From every aspect of how that senior is going to be care, families and caregivers are entering a whole new area of care, particularly with dementia and Parkinson’s and things like that, where we think virtual reality is going to help solve this problem,” he said.
“Finally, the other big problem, if you want to call it a problem, is that people are living longer. This generates a lot more need for occupational therapy and rehabilitation.”
The company’s mission is to put its product in the hands of as many seniors as possible to help them through their declining years, and now it will be able to reach much more. through a recently announced partnership with AgeWell New York. This means that MyndVR will, for the first time, be covered by insurance, as CareWell members will now have access to its virtual reality therapy sessions.
AgeWell New York is a specialty managed care organization serving Medicare and Medicaid populations in the New York metropolitan area, including Bronx, Manhattan, Queens Brooklyn, Nassau, Westchester, and Suffolk counties.
“This is the first time virtual reality has been included as an additional covered benefit for Medicare Advantage. That’s the headline: despite more than 1,000 clinical studies that point to the benefits of virtual reality in a range of outcomes from depression, to dementia, to opioid addiction, to all those different things, this is the first time virtual reality has made its way into Medicare Advantage, which is such an important vehicle for health of our seniors in this country,” Brickler said.
The reason the company chose to partner with Agewell, in particular, is because “their vision of patient-centered care is second to none”.
“All of this content that we build in our library, all of the third-party content relationships that we have, are all related to specific conditions or indications with aging. A Medicare Advantage plan, like Agewell, must have competitive advantages So Agewell will be in a more competitive position with respect to its Medicare Advantage plan than other Medicare Advantage plans,” Brickler said.
Founded in 2016, the company offers a subscription package that includes immersive glasses from HTC Vive, as well as interactive content, such as licensed content from producers such as NatGeo, Discovery and USA Today, as well as originals from MyndVR . It also provides a tablet that drives the VR experience, so that in cases where someone who might not be able to control a VR menu system due to cognitive decline, their caregiver can do so for him.
It also provides activity calendars, so caregivers and all those healthcare institutions can easily access the system and figure out what might be a good thing to do that day for those seniors.
For example, using the medium of virtual reality, the company can take an elderly person with dementia out of the four walls of their bedroom and into a 1950s speakeasy jazz club, where they can watch their favorite band or listen her favorite songs with a band playing next to a table, with a whole room of people dressed in 1950s clothes.
“We discovered very quickly that we had the ability, through this science, to do wonderful things to this aging mind. In this case, adding music, but also visually adding the experiential element to the idea and the general concepts, that’s really why we founded MyndVR. That’s how we started, as a music therapy app for seniors,” Brickler said.
The company primarily sells to senior care facilities, such as continuing care retirement communities, assisted living, skilled nursing and memory care.
“These people really need relief and connection to the outside world. So when we bring MyndVR into a memory care community, for example, it’s wonderful because we’re connecting the human mind that wants to connect with nature, with music, with art, with travel, with adventure,” Brickler explained.
“We take them out of the four walls of their existence and place them in a very happy, calm and safe place that connects them to all these energies of the outside world.”
The company currently has B2B operations in all 50 states, Canada and Australia; although it has a B2C business, in which it sells refurbished equipment, the company plans to launch the next version of its home product in the next quarter, with new immersive glasses that will be made available to the tens of millions of elderly people who live at home and are cared for at home.
In the end, Brickler thinks that that virtual reality will become ubiquitous and will be the standard of care for the elderly.
“It’s having a huge impact on the adaptability of VR with these older people, so that’s a big deal. We think that trend is going to continue, we think the price is going to keep going down on these glasses, we believe they will become ubiquitous, and we believe that every family caring for the elderly within five years will have a set of these helmets in their homes for their elderly, and perhaps for their own family,” did he declare.
“Once this ubiquitous adoption takes place, we’ll see a completely different landscape when it comes to digital therapies, because what MyndVR is building is this global network of endpoints where we can deliver these digital therapies through the technology of HTC Vive glass with the MyndVR global distribution network.
(Image source: myndvr.com)