For this blog I want to look at a company named Virtual Rehab because of their unique strategy to reach their business mission using three upcoming technologies. Virtual Rehab is an innovative tech company using a combination of virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology to overcome mental health challenges. As stated in their one pager “1 in 4 people will be affected by mental or neurological disorder at some point in their lives…” Integrating VR Tech into health care is helping people cope with mental health challenges if not completely overcome them.

My first thought was how does this work? We’re not brain washing people with VR, are we? Also, how and why is artificial intelligence and blockchain technology involved in this? Let me start by explaining VR and Healthcare use cases.

The Convergence of AI & VR - What You Can Expect | Data Driven Investor In the world of technology, convergence is the logical step. Just a few decades back you would have needed a dedicated… www.datadriveninvestor.com   VR goggles are being used in hospitals right now to treat burn victims. These patients experience consistent pain making rehabilitation therapy difficult. A hospital introduced VR games with visuals of snow-covered mountains, snowball fights, and all sorts of winter wonderland concepts. VR gaming reduced pain with distraction but more fascinating was the virtual winter wonderland was mentally soothing. When the patients are relaxed, nurses can conduct stretches, apply medication, and carry out tasks more easily.

A person with serve burns might have been through a traumatizing situation such as a house fire, an attack with acid, or a car accident. These tragic events leave people with post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD is an anxiety induced reaction triggered by a reminder of the trauma. VR is being used to create safe spaces where individuals can expose themselves to their triggers at a rate less stressful. Exposure therapy allows people to confront feared situations and create reassurance or a better understanding of their own traumatic experience. It would not surprise me if this strategy is paired with other mental health therapy such as counselling.

You get the gist of it? We can create spaces in the virtual world that are helping people persevere through mental mind traps. This can be used for addiction, psychological well-being, trauma, learning challenges, and I am sure a lot more. It truly is incredible.

Now I may be wrong (I am not expert), but from my understanding AI is good for prediction purposes. People believe that phones are listening to them. No, this is AI technology collecting data from every site you visited, every social media you use, anything it can get it hands on to predict the advertisements you will be most interested in. Instead of collecting data for marketing purposes, AI will use data on individuals healing experiences to predict some one’s behaviours and make adjustments to their treatment plan.

Blockchain is also mixed into this wild technology and human partnership. Again, I am not one hundred percent sure of all use cases for blockchain in the Virtual Rehab strategy. However, from what I gather Virtual Rehab has started their own initial coin offering (ICO). An ICO is a sale on tokens that exist on the blockchain because blockchain cannot be hacked, and it can record every transaction that takes place; therefore, it is a great place for storing something of value. OH, my brain just clicked. Blockchain will be great for storing all the private information of each client, very important data to keep safe. Back to the token sale. Basically, these tokens are like stocks for the company. The more successful the company becomes the more valuable the token becomes. The token could can be traded anywhere on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum is one of the leading blockchains as far as a fully functioning and reliable chain goes.

To chief and council this entire blog off, I will do as I always do and try to relate ideas back into the Indigenous space. In this instance it is pretty clear, on the reserve there are a lot of PTSD scenarios caused by residential school and also the ripple effects on to younger generations. These ripple effects resulted in addiction, trauma, depression, you name it. The entire library of mental health issues. I can imagine how VR technology could be introduced to Indigenous communities to address these issues. One that comes to mind is even the teaching of culture through virtual reality will help Indigenous peoples connect with their cultural values and overall help them to overcome mental barriers. I think this is already started, I have seen it via a virtual reality tour I helped showcase depicting Indigenous stories and envisioning the future.

If you’re interested in investing this cause you can buy Ethereum digital currency through an online exchange website. All you need is a credit card. Once you have Ethereum you can purchase the Virtual Rehab token. To learn more visit the Virtual Rehab webpage.

“…More than 20% of adults (aged 60+) suffer from mental or neurological disorder; 39 deaths / 100k population due to addiction; Up-to 90% Relapse; 259m prescriptions for painkillers yet 100 everyday due to overdosage; ~800k commit suicide annually; 300m are affected by depression; 1 in 160 children has an autism spectrum disorder (ASD); Lack of focus on mental health and psychological well-being.”