The NHS continues to investigate and build upon strategies to best support their service users with autism; however, approaches are often restricted by facilities, services, and restrictions within policy and procedure. One approach that is widely regarded and proven to be successful is making use of pet therapy, yet many people with autism as well as service users do not have pets, are deemed not compatible with pets, or even not allowed pets.
This project, in collaboration with the NHS’ Autism Mental Health Intensive Support Team, looks to utilise powerful immersive virtual reality technologies into developing virtual pet therapy experiences to bridge this barrier to pet access by virtualising them, helping to reduce stress, anxiety, and ultimately improve their happiness, mental health, and the quality of their daily lives through newly modernised digital therapeutic experiences.
Project Aims
- The investigation into pet therapy techniques and training to determine how they can be best virtualised.
- The creation of a virtual reality environment that allows users to interact and play with a realistic animal deployed via a Meta Quest VR headset.
- Evaluation and participant testing looking at both persons with Autism to get first hand feedback, as well as trialling with NHS professionals and specialists to get clinical opinion.
- Deployment within NHS service teams as a new method for delivering therapy, improving mental health of autistic users, and advancing clinical practice.
Project Team
- Dr Kurtis Weir
- Dr Wenge Xu
- Dr Sayan Sarcar
- Philip Weir – (NHS) Clinical Nurse Specialist
- Helen McCarthy – (NHS) Consultant Occupational Therapist
- Siddharthan Karunakaran – BCU MSc graduate leading pilot study on pet therapy for adult autism
- Farzad Jahanfard – BCU MSc graduate leading pilot study on pet therapy for child autism
Impact
The NHS’ Autism Mental Health Intensive Support Team is a newly formed team and the first of its kind in the nation focusing specifically on supporting adults with autism, and they are looking for modern innovations. Currently nothing like this exists in their practice and they’ve resorted to using videos of animals as restrictions prevent them from using real animals in many settings. This solution provides users with an additional safe space for them to engage with a pet companion for improving mental health, training, rehabilitation, and relaxation that helps to improve their environments both within service and externally to their homes.
Contact:
For more information on the project, please contact Kurtis.Weir@bcu.ac.uk.