GRcade

So, my sister has had a few issues over the past few months with some falls, then difficulty walking, then eventually being diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

I can barely type it. It's devastating for her and for the whole family.

Her and her husband had all kinds of things planned that they wanted to do, and it's now all come to nothing, she is effectively housebound with not a great deal of time left. We don't actually know how long she has but she's gone downhill a lot very quickly. She's not able to walk and is losing the use of her hands.

Here's the point of this topic - I've been thinking that a relatively cheap way for her to have some experiences outside of her 4 walls would be a VR headset and some VR 'experiences'.

I'm thinking that an Oculus Quest 2 might be the right thing? Am I right in thinking you don't need a PC, it's a standalone thing and costs about £200?

Are there many 'experiences' that don't require controllers, or that a carer could control for her? Any recommendations? How much do these typically cost.

I'm thinking of things like sitting by a beautiful lake, up a mountain, taking some sightseeing tours of cities etc. They were planning to go to New Zealand so something that replicates that kind of scenery would be ideal.

Please, any input on this would be gratefully received. If it's possible, I want to be able to give her a load of info ASAP.

Love you guys

Wishing you and your sister all the best -- I don't know much about VR but it sounds like a really nice idea and I hope you're able to find something suitable.

Damn, sorry to hear that Lime, wishing you around your family all the best

Having a look on Google, this might be of use to you?

https://www.meta.com/en-gb/blog/quest/virtual-vacation-11-vr-apps-and-films-that-let-you-travel-the-world-from-home/

I don't know anything about VR, but just wanted to wish you and your family the best.

gooseberry fool, that's horrible to hear Lime, I don't know what to say other than offer my best wishes to you and your family.

As for the VR, I would suggest getting in touch with Special Effect, they're a UK charity who provide help and advice for physically disabled people to get into (or back into) gaming, they might be able to suggest a suitable way of using VR with limited.mobility, they might not be able to do much but I found them very helpful and understanding of the challenges of my physical disability (I suffer from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and have very little mobility) they work alongside Occupational Therapists so are aware of potential issues/challenges involve with various disabilities/illnesses.

https://www.specialeffect.org.uk

I don't know if it's available for quest headsets, but Google earthe VR is incredible. You can visit anywhere on earth in 3d modelled space, at any time of the day, at human scale. You can also then pop in to street view mode in most places.

Ironhide wrote:gooseberry fool, that's horrible to hear Lime, I don't know what to say other than offer my best wishes to you and your family.

As for the VR, I would suggest getting in touch with Special Effect, they're a UK charity who provide help and advice for physically disabled people to get into (or back into) gaming, they might be able to suggest a suitable way of using VR with limited.mobility, they might not be able to do much but I found them very helpful and understanding of the challenges of my physical disability (I suffer from Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy and have very little mobility) they work alongside Occupational Therapists so are aware of potential issues/challenges involve with various disabilities/illnesses.

https://www.specialeffect.org.uk

Was literally just about to link to them. They do so much good work. Not sure if the tech is up there yet, but if anyone can, they can.

All the best to you and your family Lime - i'm sorry to hear about what your sister is going through.

Wishing you, your sister and the rest of your family the best mate.

Thank you so much for all the info, and for all the messages of support. It really helps, thank you.

It would require controllers but there's some really beautiful worlds people have made in VRChat and also people have ported a lot of game locations over as well so if your sister likes other games she might be able to go visit some of her favourite places.

Wishing her and your family all the best - Quest 2 is a good option - Quest 3 technically has a better screen and what not but I realise that it's much more expensive.

Best wishes to you and your family, Lime. Devastating thing to have to go through.

For the VR, it's definitely a good idea. A Quest 2 would be best, but if someone else is needing to use the controllers, you'll need to be streaming to a second screen so that they can see what they're doing. As for experiences, there are plenty on YouTube you can find. 180 degree videos would likely be best, so search for what you want and then hit that 180 filter. Though I wouldn't say no to also exploring 360 videos, they do require grabbing at the screen to twist the view around if you don't have full mobility, and they can also be a lesser experience for a number of reasons.

Thank you, these are all excellent suggestions. She can no longer write, but can move her arms to some degree - and was agile enough to eat forkfulls of homemade cake that we took over to her yesterday.