Telesoftas Is Harnessing VR to Empower Public Health

TeleSoftas has just received EU funding to research and develop virtual reality applications which empower patients to overcome their life-limiting phobias. The solution will help treat mental health issues, including phobias, by exposing the patient to the particular anxiety in a safe virtual environment.

The project is a partnership between TeleSoftas, the Ministry of Health, Invest Lithuania, State Mental Health Centre. On completion the app will be free and available as a self-help tool for the public. The content will offer cognitive behavioural therapy and the ability to monitor emotional well-being.

The EU funding has just been approved and by 2018 it is anticipated that there will be a clinically-tested application. The expert R & D team has already completed proof of concept successfully. Now they are working with psychologists on an extensive testing and data processing period analysing how the doctor/patient interface would work.

Mobile applications are already transforming healthcare, including monitoring our lifestyle choices, and helping us make decisions to improve our physical and mental well-being. In extension the very future of self-help could be VR with people turning on their headset to experience ways to change their behaviour and embed the theory in practice, rather than just reading about it.

The potential for mobile to help public health is huge. TeleSoftas has already been collaborating with the Lithuania University of Health Sciences on a number of solutions, including software to assist with the rehabilitation of patients with strokes and a VR project to help children cope with tuberculosis.

TeleSoftas will exhibit at this years Mobile World Congress next week. In Barcelona they will also demonstrate their new virtual reality software ‘VR Medusa’. It is their latest virtual reality business tool enabling professionals from across the world to interact in 3D.