Planet WellBeing - using extended reality to improve mental health and reduce loneliness.

星球福祉-使用扩展现实来改善心理健康和减少孤独感。在50岁以上的人群中，有十五分之一的人经常感到孤独，丧偶人群中这一比例上升到三分之一，健康状况不佳的人群中这一比例上升到四分之一。孤独和社会孤立对健康有许多影响，包括死亡可能性增加26%，患痴呆症的风险增加一倍以上。孤独的人更容易抑郁和自杀。由于身体活动受限或焦虑或抑郁等心理健康问题，许多老年人无法保持有益的面对面联系。对于这一群体来说，通过丰富的多用户扩展现实游戏进行数字互动可以提供深度社交互动和重要代理的机会；然而，这些游戏通常不是为老年人设计的。我们之前开发了一个用户界面，可以捕捉老年人在现实世界中的身体动作，并用它们来导航丰富的虚拟世界。我们展示了老年用户能够在虚拟世界中进行互动和执行复杂的活动，自然的动作给他们一种强烈的存在感。我们将开发幸福星球——一个虚拟世界，允许人们使用自然的身体动作来控制他们的化身，与朋友、家人和/或陌生人在虚拟环境中进行有趣的活动。这些活动包括步行或乘车探索、跳舞、游戏、与机器动物互动等。除了无节制的使用，一些会议将由专家-从业者/治疗师领导，他们将促进丰富的社会互动和对话，参与者可能在现实世界中发现困难。我们认为，在这个世界中丰富的社交活动将有利于用户的心理健康，减少孤独感。我们将：-与老年人共同设计物理界面和虚拟场景——发展地球福祉——一个适合年龄的虚拟环境；适合老年用户在家使用。-至少招募15-25名用户，有可能增加到50人，在家12周，提供沉浸式硬件。-评估心理健康以及孤独感、可用性、参与度、身体和生活质量在开始、结束和整个12周的各个阶段的结果。这项工作将包括后续大规模研究和最终系统推出的演示和试验。该项目将由沉浸式专家PixelMill领导，并得到谢菲尔德哈勒姆大学高级健康研究中心（AWRC）、Shapemaster Global和谢菲尔德Age UK的支持。

Planet Wellbeing - using extended reality to improve mental health and reduce loneliness.One in 15 people aged 50+ are often lonely, rising to one in three for those who are widowed, and one in four for those in poor health. Loneliness and social isolation have numerous health consequences including 26% increased mortality likelihood and more than doubling the risk of developing dementia. Lonely individuals are more prone to both depression and suicide.Many older people are unable to maintain rewarding in-person connections due to restricted physical mobility or mental health issues such as anxiety or depression. For this group digital engagement via rich, multiuser extended reality games may provide opportunities for deep social engagement and significant agency; however, these games are often not designed for older people. We previously developed a user interface that captured older-people's real-world physical actions and used them to navigate a rich virtual world. We showed that older users were able to interact and perform complex activities in the virtual world, with natural movements giving them a strong sense of presence.We will develop Planet WellBeing - a virtual world to allow people to use natural physical movements to control their avatar performing fun and engaging activities with friends and family and/or strangers in a virtual environment. These activities could include exploring on foot or in vehicles, dancing, games, interacting with robot animals, etc. As well as non-moderated use, some sessions will be led by expert-practitioners/therapists who will facilitate rich social interactions and conversations that participants may find difficult in real-world settings. We suggest the rich social engagement within this world will benefit users' mental wellbeing and reduce feelings of loneliness.We will :-Co design the physical interfaces and virtual scenarios with older people-Develop Planet WellBeing - an age-appropriate virtual environment ; suitable for at-home use by older users.-Recruit between 15-25 users as a minimum with potential to increase to 50, at home for 12 week period, providing immersive hardware.-Assess mental health as well as loneliness, usability, engagement, physical and quality of life outcomes at the start end, and at points throughout the 12 weeks.This work will include demonstrator and trials for later large scale study and eventual system rollout. The project will be led by immersive specialists PixelMill , with the support of the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre (AWRC) at Sheffield Hallam University, Shapemaster Global and Age UK Sheffield.