People participate in a virtual reality demonstration, put on by EMD Serono to give participants an interactive experience with Multiple Sclerosis at the MaRS discovery district on May 18, 2017.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) is often called “the invisible disease.” Unknown to friends, family and co-workers, those with the disease sometimes experience remission of its symptoms, and at other times experience its full onslaught. May is Multiple Sclerosis Awareness Month and World MS Day is May 31st. To mark these events, pharmaceutical company EMD Serono has utilized a unique educational channel—a virtual reality (VR) experience—to help increase not only awareness of the disease, but for the first time allow others to better understand how people experience some of its symptoms.
MS from the InsideOut engaged a wide range of participants, from media to medical personnel, to those already living with the disease at Toronto’s MaRS Discovery District. Each participant engaged in a full sensory and auditory experience delivered through stereophonic headphones and state-of-the-art VR headsets. Produced in the UK, this VR experience has been distributed worldwide by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, operating as EMD Serono in Canada.
MS is a degenerative auto-immune disease, involving the inflammation and damage of the myelin sheath around the nerves in the brain, spinal cord and optic nerves. The VR experience takes participants deep inside the body’s neural networks so they can visualize these attacks and experience firsthand some of the symptoms it can cause: impaired hearing, vision problems, mobility and cognitive impairment.
At each stop along the neural pathway, participants perceive everyday experiences from the perspective of a person with MS. Enjoying a symphony, for example, the vivid notes of the orchestra are suddenly flattened, truncated and reduced to discordant noise. Fog, blurred vision and distortion destroy the visual appreciation of a summer’s day at the beach. Memories are halted just short of recall. The ability to process stimulus and respond with appropriate movement randomly slows, halts and resumes.
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Source: National Post