VR – Cogn is a new approach in the detection of mild cognitive impairment using VR Technology. The application is created in Unity3D by Tenebra Studios, in collaboration with the Departments of Speech Therapy and Computer Science of the University of Ioannina.
It is created with ease of usage by the patient and the Healthcare professional that monitors them as its basic principle. Results are attainable through a series of easy and fun exercises that measure the patient’s cognitive impairment level. At the end of the application a detailed report with all actions taken by the patient is presented to the Healthcare professional, while the latter can view whatever the patient is seeing at any given point in time with the usage of a laptop or a PC.
The whole application runs on the Google VR platform which makes it really cost efficient for every Healthcare professional and Hospital to acquire, use and support. All that is needed is a mobile phone produced in the last 5 years with Android 7.0 and up and a cheap VR Headset to put the phone in.
No tethering to a PC and no controllers are needed for the application to run. Every action inside the application is done through VR Gaze, meaning that the patient focuses his view on what he wants to do and it is done automatically for him. This overcomes another barrier of VR which is ease of usage and ease of adoption. The graphics are made in a way that reduces/eliminates VR motion sickness and does not overwhelm the patient’s field of view. The whole exercise has Voice Over to direct the patient and an easy to understand User Interface.