How Kunle Adewale is using virtual reality to improve healthcare in Nigeria

In August 2022, Teni* was rushed to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) due to a life-threatening medical situation. The 14-year-old woman was identified with sepsis, an excessive response to an an infection, which if not handled promptly, could lead on to organ failure, tissue harm or loss of life.

After two weeks of standard therapy and care, Teni had made vital progress in restoration. Dr Ugonna Fakile and her staff who attended to Teni felt it was time to discharge {the teenager}. But there was a problem: Teni’s temper wasn’t bettering and there have been considerations that there may be one thing else flawed along with her. 

“We noticed that when we suggested that she should go home, she’ll just be dull and unresponsive,” Fakile, a marketing consultant Haematology Paediatrics Oncologist at LUTH, instructed TechCabal over a name. “This was concerning because ideally, patients have to be ready to be discharged from the perspective of the doctor and the patient. When you notice that the child’s mood is still down, you don’t want to seem like you’re pushing the child, so you ask the child to stay and you pay attention in case you’re missing anything.” 

Fakile saved on paying consideration to Teni’s low temper, hoping for a constructive change. This change lastly got here after a selected hospital train. Suddenly, Teni was extra responsive and prepared to go house. What modified? 

Teni had participated in a virtual reality (VR) train organised by the Arts In Medicine Projects. The outreach which was led by Kunle Adewale, the founding father of Arts in Medicine initiatives, supplied the sufferers in the pediatrics ward the chance to tour international locations like Canada, India, and the US, carry out guided dance and meditation classes, in addition to swim with dolphins. 

These experiences stimulated {the teenager}’s thoughts greater than the books and TVs in the hospital wards, bettering her temper. 

“What we noticed from our outreaches is that the opportunity for patients to walk around and see the sun is a deeply cherished experience,” Adewale instructed TechCabal. “Because when you’re trapped within the four walls of a hospital where all you’re used to is cries, it affects your mood and recovery process.”  Three days after Adewale’s outreach, Teni was discharged.

Although it is principally related to the gaming and leisure scene, using VR is changing into extra prevalent in different fields, together with healthcare. Medical practitioners are exploring novel ways in which VR can help sufferers and well being suppliers to obtain higher therapies and outcomes, together with in surgical procedure, ache administration, bodily and cognitive rehabilitation, psychological well being, and extra. 

Here’s the way it works: Once a affected person places on a motion-sensing VR headset (typically with handheld controllers), their perceived atmosphere is changed with a 360-degree virtual world that they’ll transfer round in and work together with.

The affected person out of the blue finds themselves in the ocean surrounded by dolphins, with the solar shining by the water’s floor. In one other occasion, the affected person can discover themselves in the streets of New York or on the Abu Simbel Temples in Egypt. 

This expertise, which is usually therapeutic, serves as a distraction from the ache or stress the affected person is going by, because it’s troublesome for the mind to concentrate on different stimuli, equivalent to adverse ones like ache and nervousness in the course of the VR expertise. While the affected person may intellectually know that they’re not beneath the ocean or in New York, the mind has to concentrate on one reality at a time. The reasonable nature of the expertise boosts the constructive feelings the sufferers really feel, and the impact of the expertise can stay for a lot of hours and days after the train is over.

Tunde*, one other affected person present process dialysis therapy for renal illness, had the same expertise after the VR session. Fakile observed that the 12-year-old grew to become extra energetic and responsive to therapy after collaborating in the VR session.

“The truth is that for any treatment to work effectively for people here with sickle cell, cancer or some terminal disease, their minds need to cooperate,” Fakile stated. “When a child is experiencing a sickle cell crisis, many thoughts and existential questions run through their minds. These are children and adolescents that are thinking about their mates in school or siblings at home eating.”

Fakile added that it’s troublesome for sufferers with low moods to talk with medical doctors and nurses about what’s flawed with them, making it troublesome for the healthcare suppliers to perceive and provides them the care they want.

The introduction of using VR know-how is a welcomed growth for Fakile, who first skilled virtual reality in 2015, throughout coaching on the childbirth course of on the Lagos University Teaching Hospital at LUTH by a overseas facilitator. Seven years later, Adewale and his staff, a gaggle of artists and educators, launched a special use case of this immersive know-how.

Adewale began out as a visible artist however over the previous few many years, he has expanded his experience in using artwork to remedy healthcare issues. He obtained certificates in Understanding Dementia and Arts, from University College London, and Medicine and the Arts: Humanising Healthcare, from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.  

In the early days, all Adewale had was a need to use artwork in a special manner. Today by his work, he has reached hundreds of individuals and even has a day named in his honour in Cincinnati.

Connecting the dots: Art and Health

After graduating with a level in Fine and Applied Arts from Obafemi Awolowo college in 2010, Kunle Adewale had one query on his thoughts: what might he do otherwise as an artist?

In 2012, whereas working as an artwork trainer in a main faculty, Adewale observed {that a} dyslexic pupil was all the time coming across the artwork studio as a result of she discovered consolation there and noticed it as a spot the place she wouldn’t be appeared down on. This expertise and plenty of others uncovered Adewale to the advantages of arts in the healthcare house.

This led Adewale to start exploring the therapeutic advantages of artwork in 2013, by founding Tender Arts Nigeria, a social enterprise that centered on artwork remedy, artwork schooling, and group growth. He later based Arts in Medicine Projects in 2016.

Over the previous seven years, the venture has labored with completely different teams of individuals (youngsters and adults) dwelling with sickle cell anaemia, most cancers, dementia, Alzheimer’s, psychological sicknesses and neurological problems. 

“These outreaches first started with normal artwork and then when VR started gaining traction from the days of Google cardboard, we experimented with it.  Since then we’ve moved to use more powerful headsets like Oculus and many other devices,” Adewale instructed TechCabal.

Helping elders relieve older recollections

The Arts in Medicine Project outreach has additionally been expanded to grownup properties.

In his outreach programmes, Adewale makes use of VR to assist younger folks have new experiences. But for the aged, he helps them relive previous recollections. In September 2022, he visited Heirs Home Care Solutions, an aged house care service based by Modupe Agusto. 

When Agusto began providing the residential elder house care service in 2020, one of many challenges she observed was that it was troublesome to interact the elders. 

“One of the things we struggle with is activities. We have games, and we encourage the elders to come around but after some exercise, they want to sit down. They’re not too interested in watching TV,” Agusto instructed TechCabal. “We’re mindful of this because with old age comes depression because they’re lonely.” 

The introduction of virtual reality was a welcomed various. At first, the elders have been sceptical concerning the unfamiliar-looking gadgets however Agusto and her staff had to persuade them first by sporting them after which by getting a few of the elders to put on them.

Once they obtained a dangle of it, the response was constructive because the elders have been excited, dancing and smiling as they have been immersed in their new virtual world.

“There was an 80-year-old man, who said he was the first DJ in Nigeria. We gave him the opportunity to attend a concert through VR and he was elated,” Adewale stated. “Another woman got to visit New York again because her children were there and she couldn’t travel to visit them. She was actively involved in naming streets and monuments.”

The price of bettering healthcare

In 2016, when Adewale started his work, the most cost effective VR headset was the Google Cardboard – a $9.99 field made out of cardboard. But the demise of Google’s first iteration has meant that first rate lower-end VR headsets go for $50, whereas mid-range gadgets price $300-$600, and the premium ones go for about $1,000 and above.

The expensive nature of those headsets implies that Adewale’s outreach programmes, that are at the moment free, ought to sometimes price about $20 for a session with 50 folks. A fairly steep value contemplating that 63% of the Nigerian inhabitants lives beneath the poverty line.

“We’ve decided to make it free for participants because access is a privilege and equity is a major thing in what we do,” Adewale stated. “Some of these people have sold their properties to treat their loved ones and you want us to go there to ask for money to make them happy? No, we don’t do that.”

Fortunately, sponsorship from organisations equivalent to Alzheimer’s Association, Alzheimer’s Society, Global Brain Health Institute, the Atlantic Institute and others assist in protecting the acquisition of higher-end headsets such because the Oculus Quest 2 and Oculus GO headsets. In addition to this, Adewale leverages current content material to provide a wide range of choices, as opposed to creating new content material from scratch, which is dearer.

“I believe technology is a leveller. When I first started this, there were times when people used to ask me whether I knew what I was doing as an ordinary art teacher, but today you can see the impact of my work,” Adewale stated.

Dealing with the uncomfortable side effects

A well-liked criticism in opposition to VR is the danger of escapism and habit—considerations that quickly folks will desire to dwell in a virtual world as a substitute of the true one. This concern is supported by a 2022 research on the University of China that discovered VR gaming 44% extra addictive than conventional gaming. 

Adewale’s response to this is that “the extreme usage of anything has side effects.” He acknowledges that VR will be addictive and advocates that it ought to be used sparingly.