The main objective of the Look of Life Project is to improve life quality of cancer patients and reduce the negative impact of their social sensory isolation. The project has been created by ANT Foundation and Cultural Association Menomale; it is being carried out in cooperation with the Research Centre HIT- Human Inspired Technology of University of Padova.
The project is also supported by Vodafone Foundation and Cattolica Foundation in cooperation with Samsung, which has kindly made available the immerse reality headset devices for the members of the project. Therefore the scope of the Look of Life Project is the evaluation of a clinical outcome and at home utility of a Gear VR viewer innovative technology, which allows to use of video immersion in 360° mode.
The outcomes of several different studies have revealed the potential positive influence of virtual reality therapies on some particular clinical and psychological cases
related to the oncological pathologies and other chronic diseases. In the case of Look of Life project the virtual reality is going to be brought directly to the patients’ homes.
The ANT Foundation team of psychologists will be carrying out the project. They will bring the devices on the patients’ doorstep and assess the effects that this increasingly popular innovative technology has on the sample group. The patients will for example undergo an experiment watching a selection of videos available online as well as video clips created by the multimedia partner of the project- DEYE VR.
This variety of experiences, some of them personalised to make patient wishes come true, offers a gift of a relaxing moment and piques patients curiosity about the pleasure of re-discovering one’emotions and the joy of wonders, which the disease often takes away from everyday life of the patient and their family.
Incorporation of the multimedia virtual system is one of the means of supporting the pharmacological treatment, helping the patients to cope with their anxiety, pain, panic attacks, depression and stress. In this way the immense reality devices are consequently contributing to a significant improvement of personal and social sensory life of a patient.
The scientific study on the effects of incorporating the technology into therapy of ANT Foundation patients (research conducted in the HIT laboratory), will be followed by launching an internet portal ‘The Look of Life’; which will also be addressed to the patients suffering from non-cancerous, but equally debilitating diseases.
An oncological disease, apart from having negative impact on the physical health of a patient, is often accompanied by periods of anxiety and depression that have certain clinical significance.
Those non-physical symptoms can seriously threaten the quality of a patient and his family members life, becoming an obstacle for both: the treatment adherence and therapy efficiency, in consequence resulting in less optimistic clinical prognosis.
Those non-physical symptoms can seriously threaten the quality of a patient and his family members life, becoming an obstacle for both: the treatment adherence and therapy efficiency, in consequence resulting in less optimistic clinical prognosis.
It is important not to limit treatment to symptoms verified by examination of a patient’s body but to look at the emotional and mental well-being of the patient. Understanding the cognitive and emotional effects of an oncological disease on a patient is as important as understanding the physical pain experienced. Only in this way, it is possible to sustain in sufferers the motivation necessary to combat the disease effectively.
In ANT we call this kind of awareness ‘Eubiosia’- “the good life”. We work every day on improving the quality of life of our patients, both by building a solid, kind relationship between doctors and patients and by exploring all possible technologies in order to offer relief from their suffering.
Raffaella Pannuti, President of ANT Foundation
The use of virtual reality (also called ‘the machine for empathy’) offers an opportunity to empathise with those suffering. It can create empathetic routes of strong impact during which we are able to understand and feel better how it is to be in someone else’s shoes. Those routes re-enhance the part of subjective imagination, which patients affected by the disease have often lost. The future direction is very clear: to make a patient’s life more comfortable by creating the remote support system that benefits both the quantitative control checks and vital functions of the conduct, all that in order to provide more comfort for the patients.
I believe that the ANT Foundation has been anticipating that future since 1978 – it has grasped the importance of supporting a patient’s life in the spirit of ‘Eubiosia’. In my opinion, ANT is now, more than ever, ready to take advantage of all the possibilities brought to us by the digital revolution.
President of Menomale association
It has been a while since the scientists started to study the meaning of the ‘presence’, which is a sensation that one can experience while being in the virtual environment created by the computers. The illusion generated by these technologies enables us to move great part of the experience connected to our physical activity from the physical world to the virtual reality. At the same time, this technology generates the lively sensation of being really present and active in the digital environment. Thanks to those features the virtual reality is being used in psychological studies to explore the innovative clinical and rehabilitative therapies to combat phobias, post-traumatic stress, depression and pain.
The contents, based on the video 3D-360° technology, will be available in open access mode on an online platform “The Look of Life” and the online platform of University of Padova HIT Research Centre. If the experiment brings the presumed/hoped for results, it will be relatively easy to extend that method and bring relief to thousands of patients.
Professor Luciano Gamberini Head of HIT Research Center