I was excited as I have never used any virtual reality before.
Initially it was a little difficult to open the box with one hand! The device also needed headphones which weren’t supplied, and the charging device came with a 2 pin plug. I also struggled to get instructions, and it was only when I turned the way that I was facing (with the headset on) that these came up. I contacted Brain Recovery Zone when it wasn’t clear about what I should be attempting with some functions, and they immediately explained everything to me.
I did speech therapy to be begin with, talking through different sounds and how to get your mouth moving. I looked at different scenes such as the Northern Lights and the Space Theme. I watched the videos explaining about what a brain injury and a stroke is, and what fatigue is.
It was all enjoyable, although at my stage of recovery I’m not sure I feel the need to do some of the exercises or view the videos again.
This would have been brilliant then – after my strokes I had speech exercises and speech and language therapy but I don’t remember anyone teaching me with different sounds as this device does. I also struggled with background noise then, so the exercises where you see how long you can cope with different scenarios would have been very helpful!
Yes, more exercises would have been helpful. Parts of this felt a little passive, so anything where you were challenged to improve on scores would be of benefit. In the speech section, it would have been helpful to practice sentences and tongue twisters
It was great to have something different to do, to take you away from the real world completely, so it’s a great idea!
Probably not – I enjoyed it but don’t feel the need to repeat many of the exercises. But I took this to my local Different Strokes group where people at different stages of their recovery tried it, and a number of people commented how enjoyable it was, including one person who wants to get one!
I would look at having more challenges, more game playing etc. In the first 6 months post-stroke this would have been really helpful, it would take your mind of everything that you can’t do and would help you to get through this period. In the longer-term, I would want there to be more challenges on here to use it regularly.
