VR Calm Room
To engage with the intervention, patients used a wireless, 3 degrees-of-freedom VR head-mounted display (an Oculus Go) running the Calm Place app developed by Mimerse. For example, screenshots are shown in Screenshots from the virtual reality calm room in the application Calm Place, Mimerse.The VR app is a real-time, 3D app developed in the game engine “Unity3D.” The VR app was also released on the Oculus store and was the highest rated app of its kind in the store. Similar to other VR relaxation or meditation apps, the user can choose in Calm Place to just sit and enjoy the gradual changes in nature, observing the change in light and sound, or to participate in guided relaxation meditation.For the trial, a special version of the app was used, removing some customization (locked to 1 environment) and onboarding to make it easier to use in an academic setting. For instance, upon putting on the headset, the user would find themselves directly in the environment rather than having to navigate through a menu system to select from a list of environments.During the trial, when the user puts on the headset and the app is loaded, the user finds themselves seated in a beautiful and stylized nature environment. In the environment, there is an object the user can point at and click to bring up a menu; however, many do not do this, simply staying and experiencing the default settings. VR training or previous experience is thus extremely low; it simply requires the user to put on the headset comfortably. Some choose to access and change the preferences from a menu that appears in the environment.From the preferences menu, the user can set a time of day and freeze time (so that time of day would not gradually progress, the default setting). Each “full day” in the app takes a few minutes to complete. Time gradually shifts from morning to midday, to sunset, to calm night with northern lights, and then sunrise. From the preferences menu of the VR app, the user can also toggle through different types of weather such as rain, cloudy, or sunny. During rain, the environment and sound dramatically shift to a smooth drizzle and subdued colors. There was also an option to disable animals in the environment (birds in the distance, rabbits in the forest). Participants were in private rooms in the ward when using the VR glasses.