The website that I chose was “Building enriching realities with children: Creating makerspaces that intertwine virtual and physical worlds in pediatric hospitals”. This article covers a study investigating a use for VR in children’s hospitals. They outlines how VR has been used previously to help distract children from pain and provide them with new experiences they can’t have while in the hospital. However, this article covers new ways to use VR to help children: by encouraging them to be builders. Thus study separated the children into different “maker-identities” depending on their focus (explorer, artisan, and planner) and were encouraged to create and express themselves, helping to decrease their anxiety.
If I were to utilize the virtual world to make my own health care space I think I would want to do something similar. Having had a lot of my own struggles with anxiety, a calming virtual space with projects to work on as a distraction would do wonders. I think I’d make something like a virtual greenhouse, with lots of neutral and earthy colors. Each plant could represent a chosen project of the person in the green house, and it could grow as the project progresses. It would provide a way for people struggling to destress, and help their mental health. There would also be setting areas and perhaps areas for collective therapy, if this were being used in a professional counseling environment. I think including simulated real gardening might be a good destressor as well. And the outside would be covered in ivy, with stained glass in certain sections.
Article link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1071581923002021
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