Social isolation is a term that more Americans have become familiar with due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but it's a concept that was already intimately familiar to one segment of the population: the elderly.
Isolation disproportionately affects the aging population in the U.S. and can lead to significant mental and physical health issues for seniors. But there's a Boston-based startup, Rendever, using a unique tool to fight it.
Rendever, founded in 2016, provides senior care facilities with virtual reality headsets and an experience platform. With the company’s technology, seniors are able to relive memories by taking a walk through their childhood neighborhoods, take part in virtual activities like skydiving or visiting the Parthenon in Greece, or share their experiences, memories and stories with loved ones.
“Coming out of the pandemic, I think one of the beautiful silver linings is we all have some empathy towards what it means to be isolated and how that can impact someone. But if you look specifically at the aging demographic, we're talking about a 50% increased risk of dementia, a 30% increase in risk of heart attack, stroke, increase in obviously, there's depression and anxiety and risk of suicide, but also things like diabetes and immunosuppression,” said Kyle Rand, the company's CEO.
“We've always thought that the foundation of all human connection is shared positive experience," Rand said. "So what we've done is we've spent the past five years building a really strong experience platform that allows people to come together, put on their headsets, and go and check off a bucket list item.”
The company has also started trying to collect data to measure the effects of its virtual reality platform on seniors. Utilizing a grant provided by the federal government's Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, Rendever has been looking at how it can empower relationships that existed before seniors moved into a care facility. To measure this, the company built out a form of virtual family engagement, where family members were able to craft and curate experiences for seniors.
“What we found in Phase I was that not only were we impacting the mental health of each individual, but we were also improving the dyadic relationship and satisfaction within the relationship, the quality within the relationship, and we saw really significant decreases in caregiver guilt,” said Rand.
In August, the company received a $2M Phase II grant from the National Institute of Aging to continue researching how virtual reality can empower better dyadic relationships through a clinical trial in conjunction with the University of California, Santa Barbara. During Phase II, the company will conduct a randomized control study that will examine the differences between VR and other forms of family engagement like video chats. Rendever is conducting this study in 12 locations across the East and West coasts with 200 dyadic relationships, or 400 participants in total. And this study won’t just measure the impact of VR in the moment, it will also measure the longitudinal impact — three months after the intervention and six months after the intervention.
The company is looking to expand its offerings, too, recently launching RendeverFit, a fitness platform for seniors that combines physical fitness, cognitive stimulation and social engagement. Within the platform, the company has launched three main modules — cycle, paddle and paint. They let users ride a virtual bicycle, play virtual ping pong, or use VR to create art on a virtual canvas.
“There’s exercise for exercise sake, and then there’s exercise in a way that is motivating. So, we've always kind of understood that what VR presents in these immersive environments is an opportunity for movement to be motivated. And we've seen this from day one, we've built up an understanding of this motivated movement paradigm where if we can get somebody actively engaged in this immersive experience, we can get them to move,” said Rand.
Rendever also announced a major new hire this week, bringing in Jennifer Stamps as director of research.
