Augmented Reality for Older Adults: Exploring Acceptability of Virtual Coaches for Home-based Balance Training in an Aging Population

J. Carroll P. Bamidis Richard Lombard-Vance + 3 lainnya

2 Juni 2021

Augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies are regularly used in psychology research to complement psychological interventions and to enable an individual to feel as if they are in an environment other than that of their immediate surroundings. A scoping review was performed to identify how AR/VR was being used with older adult populations to impact their physical and mental health. The review also sought to determine whether the terminology used in AR/VR research was consistent. The results show that 65 studies have been published in the last 20 years that meet the inclusion criteria (virtual/augmented reality) technology to impact older adults’ physical/mental health and wellbeing. Participants included healthy, physically, and cognitively impaired, and emotionally vulnerable older adults. We argue that over 70% of the studies included in this review were mislabeled as VR and only six papers included fully immersive VR/AR. The remaining studies use less immersive variants of virtual reality with their populations, and only one study made use of AR, which prompted the suggestion of a new definition for virtual reality. This paper also calls for an updated taxonomy of augmented and virtual reality definitions to address the lack of consistency found in studies that identify themselves as AR/VR when they are using less immersive technical set-ups, including displaying non-interactive videos on 2D screens.

Aaron Cecil-Xavier J. Cecil Avinash Gupta + 2 lainnya

14 September 2022

Abstract This article provides a systematic review of research related to Human–Computer Interaction techniques supporting training and learning in various domains including medicine, healthcare, and engineering. The focus is on HCI techniques involving Extended Reality (XR) technology which encompasses Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, and Mixed Reality. HCI-based research is assuming more importance with the rapid adoption of XR tools and techniques in various training and learning contexts including education. There are many challenges in the adoption of HCI approaches, which results in a need to have a comprehensive and systematic review of such HCI methods in various domains. This article addresses this need by providing a systematic literature review of a cross-section of HCI approaches involving proposed so far. The PRISMA-guided search strategy identified 1156 articles for abstract review. Irrelevant abstracts were discarded. The whole body of each article was reviewed for the remaining articles, and those that were not linked to the scope of our specific issue were also eliminated. Following the application of inclusion/exclusion criteria, 69 publications were chosen for review. This article has been divided into the following sections: Introduction; Research methodology; Literature review; Threats of validity; Future research and Conclusion. Detailed classifications (pertaining to HCI criteria and concepts, such as affordance; training, and learning techniques) have also been included based on different parameters based on the analysis of research techniques adopted by various investigators. The article concludes with a discussion of the key challenges for this HCI area along with future research directions. A review of the research outcomes from these publications underscores the potential for greater success when such HCI-based approaches are adopted during such 3D-based training interactions. Such a higher degree of success may be due to the emphasis on the design of user-friendly (and user-centric) training environments, interactions, and processes that positively impact the cognitive abilities of users and their respective learning/training experiences. We discovered data validating XR-HCI as an ascending method that brings a new paradigm by enhancing skills and safety while reducing costs and learning time through replies to three exploratory study questions. We believe that the findings of this study will aid academics in developing new research avenues that will assist XR-HCI applications to mature and become more widely adopted.

R. Dahms Norbert Reithinger A. Ruß + 2 lainnya

11 Februari 2022

Immersive Virtual Reality (VR) with head-mounted displays (HMD) can be a promising tool for increasing adherence to exercise in older adults. However, there is little known about the effectiveness of an interactive multimodal therapy in VR for older chronic back pain (CBP) patients. The aim of the exploratory randomized controlled trial was to examine the preliminary effectiveness of a VR multimodal therapy for older adults with CBP in a laboratory setting over a period of four weeks. The intervention group (IG; n = 11) received a multimodal pain therapy in VR (movement therapy and psychoeducation) and the control group (CG; n = 11) received a conventional multimodal pain therapy (chair-based group exercises and psychoeducation in a group setting). Although the VR therapy (IG) did not reach the pain intensity reduction of the CG (IG: MD = 0.64, p = .535; CG: MD = 1.64, p = .07), both groups showed a reduction in pain intensity on the Numeric Rating Scale. The functional capacity in the IG improved from Visit 1, x¯\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\overline{x }$$\end{document} = 73.11% to Visit 2, x¯\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$\overline{x }$$\end{document} = 81.82% (MD = 8.71%; p = .026). In the changes of fear avoidance beliefs and general physical and mental health, no significance was achieved in either group. Although the IG did not reach a significant pain intensity reduction compared to the CG, the results of the present study showed that a pain intensity reduction can be achieved with the current VR application.

Ayah Hamad Bochen Jia

1 September 2022

Despite virtual reality (VR) being initially marketed toward gaming, there are many potential and existing VR applications in various sectors and fields, including education, training, simulations, and even in exercise and healthcare. Unfortunately, there is still a lack of general understanding of the strengths and limitations of VR as a technology in various application domains. Therefore, the aim of this literature review is to contribute to the library of literature concerning VR technology, its applications in everyday use, and some of its existing drawbacks. Key VR applications were discussed in terms of how they are currently utilized or can be utilized in the future, spanning fields such as medicine, engineering, education, and entertainment. The main benefits of VR are expressed through the text, followed by a discussion of some of the main limitations of current VR technologies and how they can be mitigated or improved. Overall, this literature review shows how virtual reality technology has the potential to be a greatly beneficial tool in a multitude of applications and a wide variety of fields. VR as a technology is still in its early stages, but more people are becoming interested in it and are optimistic about seeing what kind of changes VR can make in their everyday lives. With how rapidly modern society has adapted to personal computers and smartphones, VR has the opportunity to become the next big technological turning point that will eventually become commonplace in most households.

Michael Prilla C. Röcker S. Büttner

21 April 2020

Augmented Reality (AR) systems are on their way to industrial application, e.g. projection-based AR is used to enhance assembly work. Previous studies showed advantages of the systems in permanent-use scenarios, such as faster assembly times. In this paper, we investigate whether such systems are suitable for training purposes. Within an experiment, we observed the training with a projection-based AR system over multiple sessions and compared it with a personal training and a paper manual training. Our study shows that projection-based AR systems offer only small benefits in the training scenario. While a systematic mislearning of content is prevented through immediate feedback, our results show that the AR training does not reach the personal training in terms of speed and recall precision after 24 hours. Furthermore, we show that once an assembly task is properly trained, there are no differences in the long-term recall precision, regardless of the training method.