How Kunle Adewale is utilizing digital actuality to enhance healthcare in Nigeria

In August 2022, Teni* was rushed to the Lagos College Instructing Hospital (LUTH) as a result of a life-threatening medical situation. The 14-year-old woman was identified with sepsis, an excessive response to an an infection, which if not handled promptly, may result in organ failure, tissue harm or loss of life.

After two weeks of normal therapy and care, Teni had made vital progress in restoration. Dr Ugonna Fakile and her group who attended to Teni felt it was time to discharge {the teenager}. However there was a problem: Teni’s temper wasn’t enhancing and there have been issues that there could be one thing else mistaken together with her. 

“We seen that once we instructed that she ought to go house, she’ll simply be uninteresting and unresponsive,” Fakile, a marketing consultant Haematology Paediatrics Oncologist at LUTH, instructed TechCabal over a name. “This was regarding as a result of ideally, sufferers should be able to be discharged from the angle of the physician and the affected person. Once you discover that the kid’s temper continues to be down, you don’t wish to appear to be you’re pushing the kid, so that you ask the kid to remain and also you concentrate in case you’re lacking something.” 

Fakile stored on taking note of Teni’s low temper, hoping for a optimistic change. This variation lastly got here after a specific hospital train. All of the sudden, Teni was extra responsive and able to go house. What modified? 

Teni had participated in a virtual reality (VR) train organised by the Arts In Medicine Projects. The outreach which was led by Kunle Adewale, the founding father of Arts in Drugs initiatives, supplied the sufferers within the pediatrics ward the chance to tour international locations like Canada, India, and the US, carry out guided dance and meditation periods, in addition to swim with dolphins. 

These experiences stimulated {the teenager}’s thoughts greater than the books and TVs within the hospital wards, enhancing her temper. 

“What we seen from our outreaches is that the chance for sufferers to stroll round and see the solar is a deeply cherished expertise,” Adewale instructed TechCabal. “As a result of if you’re trapped inside the 4 partitions of a hospital the place all you’re used to is cries, it impacts your temper and restoration course of.”  Three days after Adewale’s outreach, Teni was discharged.

Though it’s largely related to the gaming and leisure scene, using VR is turning into extra prevalent in different fields, together with healthcare. Medical practitioners are exploring novel ways in which VR can help sufferers and well being suppliers to realize higher therapies and outcomes, together with in surgical procedure, ache administration, bodily and cognitive rehabilitation, psychological well being, and extra. 

Right here’s the way it works: As soon as a affected person places on a motion-sensing VR headset (typically with handheld controllers), their perceived surroundings is changed with a 360-degree digital world that they’ll transfer round in and work together with.

The affected person out of the blue finds themselves within the ocean surrounded by dolphins, with the solar shining via the water’s floor. In one other occasion, the affected person can discover themselves within the streets of New York or on the Abu Simbel Temples in Egypt. 

This expertise, which is commonly therapeutic, serves as a distraction from the ache or stress the affected person goes via, because it’s troublesome for the mind to concentrate on different stimuli, reminiscent of damaging ones like ache and nervousness throughout the VR expertise. Whereas the affected person would possibly intellectually know that they’re not beneath the ocean or in New York, the mind has to concentrate on one actuality at a time. The life like nature of the expertise boosts the optimistic feelings the sufferers really feel, and the impact of the expertise can stay for a lot of hours and days after the train is over.

Tunde*, one other affected person present process dialysis therapy for renal illness, had an identical expertise after the VR session. Fakile seen that the 12-year-old grew to become extra lively and aware of therapy after taking part within the VR session.

“The reality is that for any therapy to work successfully for individuals right here with sickle cell, most cancers or some terminal illness, their minds must cooperate,” Fakile stated. “When a toddler is experiencing a sickle cell disaster, many ideas and existential questions run via their minds. These are kids and adolescents which might be excited about their mates at school or siblings at house consuming.”

Fakile added that it’s troublesome for sufferers with low moods to speak with docs and nurses about what’s mistaken with them, making it troublesome for the healthcare suppliers to grasp and provides them the care they want.

The introduction of using VR expertise is a welcomed improvement for Fakile, who first skilled digital actuality in 2015, throughout coaching on the childbirth course of on the Lagos College Instructing Hospital at LUTH by a international facilitator. Seven years later, Adewale and his group, a bunch of artists and educators, launched a unique use case of this immersive expertise.

Adewale began out as a visible artist however over the previous few a long time, he has expanded his experience in utilizing artwork to resolve healthcare issues. He obtained certificates in Understanding Dementia and Arts, from College Faculty London, and Drugs and the Arts: Humanising Healthcare, from the College of Cape City, South Africa.  

Within the early days, all Adewale had was a want to make use of artwork otherwise. In the present day via his work, he has reached hundreds of individuals and even has a day named in his honour in Cincinnati.

Connecting the dots: Artwork and Well being

After graduating with a level in Superb and Utilized Arts from Obafemi Awolowo college in 2010, Kunle Adewale had one query on his thoughts: what may he do in a different way as an artist?

In 2012, whereas working as an artwork trainer in a major college, Adewale seen {that a} dyslexic scholar was all the time coming across the artwork studio as a result of she discovered consolation there and noticed it as a spot the place she wouldn’t be regarded down on. This expertise and plenty of others uncovered Adewale to the advantages of arts within the healthcare house.

This led Adewale to start exploring the therapeutic advantages of artwork in 2013, by founding Tender Arts Nigeria, a social enterprise that targeted on artwork remedy, artwork schooling, and group improvement. He later based Arts in Medicine Projects in 2016.

Over the previous seven years, the venture has labored with totally different teams of individuals (kids and adults) dwelling with sickle cell anaemia, most cancers, dementia, Alzheimer’s, psychological diseases and neurological issues. 

“These outreaches first began with regular paintings after which when VR began gaining traction from the times of Google cardboard, we experimented with it.  Since then we’ve moved to make use of extra highly effective headsets like Oculus and plenty of different gadgets,” Adewale instructed TechCabal.

Serving to elders relieve older reminiscences

The Arts in Drugs Challenge outreach has additionally been expanded to grownup properties.

In his outreach programmes, Adewale makes use of VR to assist younger individuals have new experiences. However for the aged, he helps them relive previous reminiscences. In September 2022, he visited Heirs Dwelling Care Options, an aged house care service based by Modupe Agusto. 

When Agusto began providing the residential elder house care service in 2020, one of many challenges she seen was that it was troublesome to interact the elders. 

“One of many issues we wrestle with is actions. We have now video games, and we encourage the elders to return round however after some train, they wish to sit down. They’re not too desirous about watching TV,” Agusto instructed TechCabal. “We’re aware of this as a result of with previous age comes melancholy as a result of they’re lonely.” 

The introduction of digital actuality was a welcomed different. At first, the elders had been sceptical concerning the unfamiliar-looking gadgets however Agusto and her group needed to persuade them first by carrying them after which by getting a few of the elders to put on them.

As soon as they received a cling of it, the response was optimistic because the elders had been excited, dancing and smiling as they had been immersed of their new digital world.

“There was an 80-year-old man, who stated he was the primary DJ in Nigeria. We gave him the chance to attend a live performance via VR and he was elated,” Adewale stated. “One other lady received to go to New York once more as a result of her kids had been there and she or he couldn’t journey to go to them. She was actively concerned in naming streets and monuments.”

The price of enhancing healthcare

In 2016, when Adewale started his work, the most cost effective VR headset was the Google Cardboard – a $9.99 field made out of cardboard. However the demise of Google’s first iteration has meant that respectable lower-end VR headsets go for $50, whereas mid-range gadgets price $300-$600, and the premium ones go for about $1,000 and above.

The expensive nature of those headsets implies that Adewale’s outreach programmes, that are at present free, ought to usually price about $20 for a session with 50 individuals. A quite steep value contemplating that 63% of the Nigerian inhabitants lives under the poverty line.

“We’ve determined to make it free for individuals as a result of entry is a privilege and fairness is a significant factor in what we do,” Adewale stated. “A few of these individuals have bought their properties to deal with their family members and also you need us to go there to ask for cash to make them blissful? No, we don’t do this.”

Happily, sponsorship from organisations reminiscent of Alzheimer’s Affiliation, Alzheimer’s Society, World Mind Well being Institute, the Atlantic Institute and others assist in protecting the acquisition of higher-end headsets such because the Oculus Quest 2 and Oculus GO headsets. Along with this, Adewale leverages present content material to supply quite a lot of choices, versus creating new content material from scratch, which is costlier.

“I imagine expertise is a leveller. Once I first began this, there have been instances when individuals used to ask me whether or not I knew what I used to be doing as an unusual artwork trainer, however right now you may see the affect of my work,” Adewale stated.

Coping with the negative effects

A well-liked criticism in opposition to VR is the danger of escapism and dependancy—issues that quickly individuals will choose to reside in a digital world as an alternative of the actual one. This concern is supported by a 2022 study on the College of China that discovered VR gaming 44% extra addictive than conventional gaming. 

Adewale’s response to that is that “the intense utilization of something has negative effects.” He acknowledges that VR might be addictive and advocates that it ought to be used sparingly.