Education Guide 7.26.26 - Flipbook - Page 5
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infrastructure. Not only are the competitions a way to hone skills, but they
can also serve as networking events for
students looking to enter the workforce.
And Varsalone’s program has been highly
successful in job placement.
“My team is the only one where everyone goes pro, most of all my students
are getting jobs. Even in a tough market
like right now, my cybersecurity students
have an edge by being part of this competition team,” Varsalone says.
Virtual reality is playing an increasingly
important role in health care. To help elderly patients with mobility, the University of
Maryland’s School of Nursing is piloting
a program that harnesses the power of
virtual reality. Brittany Burch, an assistant
professor, is using VR headsets to transform patient recovery.
The idea for the study originated from
Burch’s time as an at-home nurse. When
some of her elderly patients were hospitalized for an acute condition, they were
often weaker following discharge and in
need of physical rehabilitation. She wanted to find a way to improve and increase
their physical activity during their hospital
stay and hit upon using VR headsets for
exercise.
The Preserving Ability through Virtual
Exercise (PAVE) program is designed
to boost movement through various
programs available on the headsets.
Exercises include hitting targets to the
beat of their favorite music or performing movements like knee strikes. Burch
says the gamified experience is fun for
the older patients, which can be more
motivating than having to go somewhere
to exercise.
“Patients can use the headsets to
exercise when they have time. They don’t
even have to get out of bed to do some
of the exercises. They are getting some
upper body, core and lower body workouts,” Burch says.
When setting patients up with the VR
headsets, Burch says they have to take
the hospital room environment into consideration so that lines and monitors are
not disrupted. The participating patients
are also instructed in how to use the
headsets so they can play whenever they
want to.
“It was important that the patients
can do this for themselves. They have
ownership, and it also doesn’t add any
additional burdens to the hospital nurses,” Burch says.
The PAVE program launched three
months ago with 12 patients and so far,
the response has been overwhelmingly
positive. So far, Burch has seen improvement in adhering to daily exercise, but
notes that with elderly patients, pain can
sometimes be a barrier to patients sticking with exercise. The good news, virtual
reality has a use as a distraction for pain.
Burch has funding to increase the
number up to 120 patients and says the
future will be interesting if they get the
opportunity to conduct a similar study in
other patient populations.
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