Ugly Lies the Bone, Virtual Reality and The Power of Theatre

Much as I'm interested in new technologies, Virtual Reality (VR) has never been my thing. I suffer from vertigo from time to time and, from what I've read, VR experiences can trigger it. I already struggle with 3D movies (I rarely go to a 3D version of a film these days), and I really don't like sweeping film sequences as if in flight. I have to look away from the screen. So I'm not a natural fit for VR.

On the business side, beyond entertainment (immersive films and entertainment), I've also not seen a compelling reason for VR, yet it's one of those technologies that won't go away, has been invested in heavily and was ubiquitous at this year's Mobile World Congress. Admittedly, it was fun watching a colleague walk the plank off a virtual sky scraper, but that's a gimmick or a game and isn't going to be for everyone. So it's fair to say, I'm a VR naysayer. Or at least I was.

I'm now beginning to see some exciting uses for VR in terms of well-being. I, and several thousand others were moved by Tribemix's work with dementia patients by using Virtual Reality to take them back to places where they felt safe and could escape their dementia, even if only for a short while. I think it's extraordinary how the mind can be fooled and that you can immerse yourself in an alternate reality so readily.



Which leads me to the fabulous play I've just seen at The National Theatre - Ugly Lies the Bone. It's the tale of Jess, a US war veteran who was badly injured in Afghanistan and spent 14 months in hospital and is in constant pain. She moves back to her home town in Florida to live with her sister and as part of her pain management, she uses guided VR to help her overcome some of her physical and mental limitations.

I'm fascinated at the prospect that something non-invasive and non-pharmaceutical like VR might be used to heal and to manage chronic illness or chronic pain. That has to be better than pumping people full of drugs.

The play explores Jess's return to her hometown, and her rebuilding relationships with her sister and ex boyfriend and trying to establish a new life for herself. Jess also immerses herself into a VR experience and the audience also experiences it through some of the most stunning visuals I've ever seen on the stage. They're so good that they almost take away from the writing and performances. The tight cast do not disappoint. The relationship dynamics are really interesting as others, and Jess herself adjust to the disfigurements she suffered and to the triggers that send her back to the moment the bomb went off in Afghanistan that sent her on this painful journey.

The play is life-affirming, fascinating and beautiful. Go see it while you can! It may help you see another side to virtual reality beyond nerds gaming in darkened rooms. More about the play and how to book tickets on The National Theatre website.

In both the film and theatre examples above, the power of storytelling and the power of theatre is clear to me. Theatre has the power to take us somewhere else entirely, and in turn, that can be a fabulous healing experience.

A fitness band update–Fitbit Flex vs Sony Smartband

I am a lucky girl, really I am. I was given a Fitbit Flex to try to compare with the Sony Smartband I’ve been using. They both essentially do the same thing – measure sleep patterns, record steps and have some software to help you keep track of it all. They’re both around the same price. You can get the Sony Smartband here and the Fitbit Flex here.

Style and comfort

There’s not a lot in it, they are both lightweight and they both have rubber wrist straps and a similar fastening. The Fitbit Flex wins out in comfort – it’s slightly smaller, you can wear it in the shower without worrying about it and it buzzes to tell you when you’ve hit your 10,000 step goal without having to synch to the app.

Usability

They both have a battery life of about 5 days. Charging the Sony Smartband is easy – it takes the same kind of connector as any smartphone so it works with any phone charger. The Fitbit Flex, in order to keep it waterproof I guess, has a special casing to put it in to then plug into your computer or a plug. That adaptor will be very easy to lose as it’s small and a bit fiddly. I did buy an additional adaptor to keep at my Mum’s house so that I can keep the one at home, at home and in the same place all the time.

The strap clasp on the Fitbit Flex is more fiddly than the Sony Smartband. That means it’s not going to come off easily, but it also means if you lack manual dexterity, you will struggle to get it on and off. That rules it out for elderly people. Equally, having to place the Flex device into the special charging adaptor is also a bit fiddly if you’re not as good with your hands as you used to be.

The Sony Smartband can be set up to do other things with your device, but I didn’t set it up that way. I would never remember what you’d have to do to use it. And it’s not a big deal to get my phone or tablet out to move to the next track on my MP3 player, for example.

The Fitbit Flex has a very nice feature where you can tap the light bar to see how near (or not) you are to reaching your step goal. I found that useful. Even more useful would be a watch and/or timer but I guess that’s coming with the next iteration.

Step counting

I wore both bands for a couple of weeks to see how closely (or not) they matched on step count. I wore them on the same wrist so that they were registering the same movements with that arm. They came out differently. The Sony Smartband routinely came out at a significantly higher step count than the Flex – like a 15 to 20% difference. That’s quite a lot. My conclusion is that neither is probably recording terribly accurately so to use the step count as a guide rather than a fact. And the fact that the Fitbit comes in at a lower count means you have to move a bit more to reach the goal. That’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Annoyingly on both devices, neither registers a step count when you’re cycling on a fixed cycle in the gym. And on the treadmill, you need to be using it with your hands moving rather than on the rail, otherwise your steps won’t be counted. The steps are more based on arm movement than they are on leg movement. This also means you can up your step count by moving your arms around from your arm chair. And I admit, I have done this to get to my 10,000 when I was close to it! Dancing and marching or running on the spot also works for step count as long as you move your arms.

Software

The Fitbit Flex has the edge for me on the software now because I can link the app to MyFitnessPal which is where I’m recording what I eat. I am sort of interested in the calorie counting, but what I like most about MyFitnessPal is the nutritional value. This is of much more interest – it helps me see if I’m lacking in iron or a particular vitamin, or if I’m over my carbohydrate goal for the day. I find that much more useful than calories per se. The Fitbit Flex does have its own food diary element, but I much prefer MyFitnessPal and connecting that up to the app.

I haven’t yet explored the online community for Fitbit Flex. There are all kinds of challenges, tips for exercise and more. Right now, I’m happy with how I’m using it and I think delving more into the online stuff would be a distraction until I am set in my new patterns.

Sleep Patterns

Neither is perfect on this. With the Sony Smartband, you set the time you typically go to bed and the time you want the alarm to go off and it calculates your sleep quality based on those times – even if they weren’t the times you actually went to bed. I never quite got the hang of turning it from day to night mode.

With the Fitness Flex, you tell the app when you went to sleep and when you woke up and it makes the analysis from that. I’m not sure it’s giving me more insight, but at least there’s a record there.

Synching

Neither is perfect. And because of that, I can’t say one is better than the other. They’re both flawed.

The Sony Smartband allegedly uses NFC or bluetooth to synchronise. Except, I couldn’t get the NFC element to work consistently. I also had to download two other apps to get the smartband synching properly and that seems excessive. The bluetooth synching did work, but not consistently. It took too long to synch most of the time, and in retrospect, that was a waste of my time.

The Fitbit Flex uses bluetooth to synch and when it works, it works really well. The trouble is, the Fitbit system is very often down for maintenance. Also, your back data isn’t stored locally so you can’t see it offline. That seems a bit daft to me.

Other

One of the things that made a difference to me in terms of my own health and fitness was the ‘add your friends’ feature on Fitbit Flex. This means I can see how a couple of my close friends are doing in their weekly step challenge. I didn’t want to be shown up, so it did get me moving to keep up with them. And that has been a very good thing. If you’d said to me that the competitive element would be attractive to me, I’d have said no, not at all. But I’ve actually found it useful and relevant. It’s about giving me a benchmark to work from and to see others like me and what they’re achieving.

The other impact this process has had is that I’m paying much more attention to my diet, I’m paying much more attention to how much I’m moving and I’ve rejoined the gym. I don’t suppose I’m ever going to have six pack, but if I can stave off future ill-health by working on my fitness now, then that’s great. A friend turned me on to the Julia Buckley book ‘The Fat Burn Revolution’. I’m not one for fitness books, but I’m enjoying this one and it has helped me rethink how I structure my exercise regime and what it’s actually doing for me. It’s very readable, the exercises are doable and Julia has a very down to earth approach which appeals to me.

So, if I had to choose one over the other, it would be the Fitbit Flex.

Will I still be using this device in three month’s time? Honestly, I have no idea. But I think maybe I will.

Diabetes support via mobile phone

Diabetes, or at least, Type II diabetes seems to be an affliction of modern, sedentary life. It has very serious implications with heart and sight problems associated with it and a strict dietary and medical regime in order to regulate and manage it. A member of my family has Type II diabetes and the associated heart condition and mood swings as well as a plethora of drugs and blood testing paraphernalia. You never quite get used to seeing someone you love inject themselves with insulin. What it must be like to actually have diabetes, I can only imagine. And I only hope that it remains imagination with me and that I don’t succumb to it.

Anyway, the bright folks at Mobile Health Tech, a mobile healthcare service provider, has rolled out its first commercial trial of mPro Care at Clarkstown Medical Associates PC in New City, NY.

MPro Care is the first two-way mobile diabetes solution that provides automated reminders and accepts readings using standard mobile phones on all major U.S. service providers.

Diabetes patients text back their blood-sugar readings, which are captured and plotted on a patient diary card graph in a secure portal for online access by either patient or physician. Nifty.

mPro Care was developed to help improve patient medication and treatment compliance for improved health care outcomes and reduced cost of care for patients with chronic conditions such as diabetes, coronary artery disease and hypertension, asthma and obesity.

More information about it in this article on Mobile Marketer.

I suspect many of these patients are in the latter halves of their lives so I hope that the people creating and running these services have taken that in to account. As a refresher, you may want to have a listen to this podcast of Dick Stroud’s session on marketing to the Over 50s.

Technorati Tags: diabetes,mobile,mobile health,text messaging

Free Pollen Count text messages from Asthma UK

Just spotted this via Brand Republic. Asthma UK is offering folks free tips on controlling their asthma including a free text message service to advise sufferers when there's likely to be a high pollen count.

I don't suffer from asthma, but I do suffer badly from hayfever (last year was *really* bad) so I've signed up to get the text alerts. However, from experience, I know pretty quickly how high the pollen count is by how snuffly I am as the effect on me is pretty immediate. And there's a limit to how many anti-histamines a girl can take without falling asleep.

Maybe it's time I did the Tony Robbins detox again*? After doing that a few years ago I stopped getting hayfever.. well until my body retoxed a few months later at least!

*The gist of it is over 10 days you eat nothing with a head (fish, meat, honey, dairy), no irritants (vinegar, onions, salt), no sugar, no caffeine, no alcohol, salad with every meal, don't mix proteins and carbohydrate at a meal, don't drink 20 mins before, during or up to 20 mins after a meal, nothing but raw fruit or veg before midday and exercise 6 days out of 10.

The Japanese do mobile content for women so well

so it's not a huge surprise that women use the mobile internet more than men. Some recent examples of female specific stuff you might want to check out are:

Create Nail Art on the go - where you can design art for your nails, and I guess try and get a nail bar to replicate it for you, or maybe it's just for fun. I can't imagine Nails Inc going for this - mind you they've just started sending me emails again having been silent since summer 2002 - the reason I know this is because I signed up after meeting Thea, the founder, and that was in the summer of 2002. I kid you not! Still, at least you can get 20% off services in February with this voucher.

Lose weight with the GPS enabled Beauty Walker mobile application from Bandai. I'm guessing it's a mix of pedometer and calorie counter. And I expect this appeals to both sexes, but with a name like 'beauty walker' probably veers more towards the female contingent.

Or just get yourself a very blinged-up Swarowski crystal covered handset courtesy of DoCoMo.

More on Japanese mobile usage over at Jan's Wireless World Japan.