SL Video: "The Drax Files - World Makers [ Episode 22: Virtual Health Adventures]"

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The latest Drax Files, "“Second Life is the perfect place for amputees to overcome emotional trauma by sharing stories and realizing they are not alone!” says Sandra L. Winkler, assistant professor at NOVA University in Florida, teaching occupational therapy.

Her Virtual Health Adventures project is using Second Life to find out if virtual reality can offer a better learning environment for amputees than a traditional website.

Dr. Winkler’s 3-year study is funded by the United States for Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality  and is currently mid-way through the 3-year study period.

She adds that while it would be too early to state conclusions on the project, preliminary results clearly show that virtual worlds with their unique ability to create a sense of "being-there", are a powerful tool to facilitate a peer-network: a place where amputees from all over the world help others [veterans of wars and non-military amputees alike] and offer emotional peer support to families.

"Second Life offers a space where clinicians can learn from patients what they might not be able to glean from textbooks", Sandra Winkler says: a space where amputees can share insight into their lives so that able-bodied students or any other interested party can experience what it feels like to lose a limb.

More information at http://www.virtualhealthadventures.org/ [this video will also be presented in modified form at http://www.icdvrat.reading.ac.uk/2014... ]"

Press Release: Virtual Ability Celebrates Six Years

On Saturday the 16th of August, the Virtual Ability community (VAI) celebrated six wonderfully successful years since the organisation opened its first island in Second Life. VAI held a party for its community. DJ Danger Lytton provided great tunes for listening and dancing. The dance floor was surrounded by slideshows and photo boards filled with memories of the community's numerous activities since its start in 2008.

While it began operation as The Heron Sanctuary in 2007, Virtual Ability,® Inc. opened their first island in 2008, with a mission to enable people with a wide range of disabilities by providing a supporting environment for them to enter and thrive in online virtual worlds like Second Life®.

Since its inception, the community has grown in size to nearly 1,000 members comprised of people with disabilities, their friends, families and caregivers, along with medical personnel, researchers and educators from all across the world. Virtual Ability owns six SL islands.

In keeping with its mission, Virtual Ability partners with different organizations on initiatives like AVESS, developing best practices for providing on-line peer-to-peer support services for military amputees and their families. VAI also provides inworld services, employment and accessibility information for people with disabilities.  Virtual Ability hosts two annual professional conferences: the Mental Health Symposium in spring and the International Disability Rights Affirmation Conference (IDRAC), coming up in early October this year.

The group looks forward to many more years of activity, continued peer support and growth in virtual worlds. For more information about the organization, visit our website at http://www.virtualability.org.

Gentle Heron and Skye Silverweb

Press Release: Virtual Health Adventures

Virtual Ability, Inc. is pleased to announce its participation in Virtual Health Adventures, a major project that will apply amputee-rehabilitation lessons learned from the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts to the mainstream amputee population. The project is lead by Nova Southeastern University, College of Health Care Sciences - Occupational Therapy and the College of Computer and Information Science, and funded by a grant from the United States Department of Health and Human Services, Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.


The three-year Virtual Health Adventures project will use the virtual world of Second Life® to provide evidence-based health information for individuals with upper and lower limb amputation(s), their families, and the clinicians who serve individuals with amputation. In addition, the project will conduct a randomized clinical trial to evaluate the effectiveness of providing this information in a virtual world environment compared with providing it via a traditional CD-ROM.

Nova Southeastern University and its multiple partners on this project will develop the health-related content and conduct the clinical trial. Virtual Ability, Inc., as one of the project subcontractors, will develop the Second Life® virtual environment, and provide virtual world community management services for the duration of the project.

Amputation is a chronic, life-long condition. Acquiring current and evolving prosthetic and health-related information will be an ongoing process throughout the lifespan of the amputee. The objective of the Virtual Health Adventures project research is to provide amputees with evidence-based information to improve their health and quality of life while decreasing the burden of this chronic condition on society.

Commenting on the project, Alice Krueger, President of Virtual Ability, Inc., said, "I am very pleased that Virtual Ability can continue to build on our previous work on community building in virtual worlds. This project will not only promote the use of evidence-based health information to improve the quality of life of amputees learning to use their prosthetics, but will also let us assess the use of virtual worlds for this type of activity."

About NSU
Nova Southeastern University (NSU) is the nation's eighth largest, not-for-profit, independent university, with more than 28,000 students and 148,000 alumni. In addition to a main campus in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the university also hosts field-based programs in 32 other Florida cities, in 23 states, and at 16 international sites. NSU is a fully accredited institution awarding undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees. For further information, please see www.nova.edu
For information on the Virtual Health Adventures project, contact: 1kokopelli12 Resident

About AHRQ
Funding for the Virtual Health Adventures project is provided by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a department of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. AHRQ’s mission is to improve the quality, safety, efficiency, and effectiveness of health care for all Americans. As one of 12 agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services, AHRQ supports research that helps people make more informed decisions and improves the quality of health care services. For more information about AHRQ, please see www.ahrq.gov.

About Virtual Ability, Inc.
Virtual Ability, Inc. is a woman- and disability-owned Colorado-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that is the leading provider of support and information for and about people with disabilities in virtual world settings. Virtual Ability enables people with a wide range of disabilities by providing a supporting environment for them to enter and thrive in online virtual worlds. For more information about Virtual Ability, please see www.virtualability.org.

For information on the Virtual Health Adventures project, contact: Gentle Heron