CINCINNATI —

Imagine putting on a headset and being transported inside your body, getting to see what your surgeon will see and taking a look at the issue up close.

That's how Cincinnati Children's Hospital helped prepare one Wyoming, Ohio, boy for his open-heart surgery and it's changed his life in more ways than one.

Brayden Otten is no stranger to hospitals.

Eight hours after his birth his parents learned his heart wasn't normal.

"Sometimes it only forms a small ventricle on the left side of the heart or no ventricle at all. In Brayden's case it was small," his dad John Otten said.

From that moment, Brayden's life went down a different path.

It was on with several surgeries, but still full of fun, baseball, fishing and love from his furry family members.

"He's been really strong making sure he's as normal as any kid out there," said his dad.

Recently, Brayden's cardiologist noticed some changes and experts saw this as a chance to create a new future for him.

"Basically, do a revision of initial open-heart surgeries and create two ventricles where there used to be only one," Otten said.

They explained it to the 12-year-old in a language he knows well, gaming.

They took his video game talent and amplified it to put Brayden and his heart at the center, using virtual reality.

"It was amazing. We handed it to him. All of a sudden he put it on, knew exactly what to do and was in the space," said Director of Congenital Heart Surgery at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Dr. David Morales.

Morales took Brayden inside his heart.

Video showed him detailing every step of the procedure as Brayden explored the inner workings of his ticker.

"It breaks it down. It takes away all that technical jargon," said Brayden's mother Michelle Otten.

"Doctor Morales was saying, 'Ok, so this is where I'm gonna make this cut," she said.

Brayden was a natural in this virtual space.

"I thought it was pretty cool," he said.

It was a full-circle moment for Dr. Ryan Moore who has known Brayden since birth and is spearheading this technology.

"As someone who grew up with video games and is a gamer, it means a lot to me that I was talking to Brayden's parents, after that experience now he wants to become a doctor who develops games to help save kids," said Moore, Director of the Heart Inst. Digital Healthcare Innovation Group at Cincinnati Children's Hospital.

Brayden's family said there was a noticeable shift in his confidence after the virtual reality experience.

No one really knew how long Brayden's recovery would take in the hospital.

Doctors thought maybe three to four weeks.

But Brayden was sent home around two weeks after his surgery and will be able to spend Christmas with his family.

Imagine going to work, talking to your co-workers, and collaborating in an office space without actually leaving your dining room table.

“It literally just feels like you're in another world,” said Renji Bijoy, the founder of Immersed.

Bijoy and the rest of the team at Immersed are creating an office away from the office, so to speak.

“Say you have your laptop and your headset, you can go to your couch, your porch, on the road, and you'll have all the screens around you,” he explained.

It’s more than just a room. Inside this headset, you can customize your workspace -- coffee shop, conference room, you name it.

“This is called the space lounge. It’s just a really cool space lounge environment,” Gavin Menichini, another employee at Immersed, demonstrated.

And you have the flexibility to have multiple screens with the flick of a hand.

“Kind of like Jedi Star Wars with the force, I can click and grab these monitors and I can move them around left and right. I can pinch and expand them to make them bigger, make them smaller,” Menichini said.

So why VR for work? Beyond remote capabilities, Bijoy said it boils down to productivity and focus.

“We have sort of this, I guess, short attention span world that now all of us and our kids now live in, and we feel like Immersed is going to retrain the human brain so that we can get people to be more focused,” he said. “I feel like we don't have to look at technology as this negative connotation or this thing that's kind of screwing up and frying our brains. It’s something that can enhance humans.”

The virtual reality industry is gaining traction. Tech companies like Facebook are investing in research.

“Back in 2012 through 2014, there was a lot of hype around VR, but then there were a lot of technological obstacles. People were getting headaches and things like that, and a lot of people rushing that space,” Bijoy said.

The hardware, Bijoy said, is catching up.

“This is like in the next second-ish years as far as glasses being a thing. You can put them on to teleport to an office.”

In a way, the pandemic accelerated the possibilities.

“When the pandemic hit, more people were just exploring virtual office-type solutions,” Bijoy said.

For leaders like Aaron Miri, two-dimensional communication may not be enough.

“Tech, although it's a great augmenter, is not a replacement for that one to one communication, but VR can negate that and really eliminate that 2D screen in front of you because you really do feel like someone is sitting across from you talking to you,” said Aaron Miri, Chief Information Officer at the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School.

He says VR is critical moving forward.

“These tools are critical for us because it allow us to experiment and talk to each other and give a different level of dynamic engagement just like we’re doing here, as opposed to sitting at home behind a two-dimensional screen,” he said.

Beyond productivity, Immersed has a way for you to collaborate with coworkers in real-time, too.

“If I wanted to join Caleb, all I have to do is hover over his name, and then I can press the ‘join room’ button if Caleb is in an open collaboration room. Simple as that. It's going to spawn me into his room with Caleb,” Menichini explained.

Bijoy said they do face some setbacks.

“There are a lot of barriers to entry for even just getting a user to get a headset, or just turning on the app and getting into the app together with their team,” he said.

However, he believes there are endless opportunities for VR as an added option for businesses to collaborate and have location flexibility.

“We 100% anticipate there being a hybrid approach moving forward. We don’t think things will snap back just like to the way it was before COVID, where employers don't allow people to work from home. I think this past year and a half has enabled people to see the freedom that's possible through working from home,” Bijoy said.

CINCINNATI —

Thousands of staff at Cincinnati Children's are using virtual reality training to help move into the new Critical Care Building this fall.

The layout and experience will be different in this facility. So knowing where everything is and how to navigate it, will be critical.

The technology is state of the art.

"Things can happen so quickly so the more that we can become acclimated to the environment, the better. So this was a great way for us to see the space and how we would move around in it so we can focus on our patients when we move into the new building," said Kelly Ely, nurse in PICU at Cincinnati Children's.

There are eight virtual reality stations. More than 3,000 front-line workers will be coming and training on it. This is one of the largest V-R onboarding experiences in the world.

Ryan Moore is a doctor at Children's.

"I started out as a digital arts background. Failed out of that and became a cardiologist," said Dr. Ryan Moore, co-director of digital experience technology labs at Children's.

His mission has been to utilize his gaming and medical background to help colleagues in the most realistic setting possible.

He collaborated with Children's team of digital experience creators to make this a possibility.

"It's fun to make video games that save lives," said Matthew NeCamp, an application specialist.

A big move with virtual reality hoping to ease the transition.

CINCINNATI —

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the harsh reality of isolation became front and center for seniors, especially in nursing homes.

As care facilities search for new ways to help residents adapt to limited interaction with other residents and visitors, a new study is poised to provide a possible solution.

A global study currently underway through Stanford University hopes to provide qualitative insight between virtual reality and the aging population. The study promises to be the largest study of its kind in history.

The study is made possible through the partnerships with MyndVR and AT&T.

Among the approximate 50 global partners involved in the study is Maple Knoll Village in Springdale.

MyndVR sells virtual reality headset kits with an accompanying tablet. MyndVR says its starter price is $6,000 a year per senior community with a two-year contract. This includes three headsets and access to its VR content library.

Participants can slip on a headset and choose different virtual experiences like concerts, international and space travel and a Broadway performance.

Maple Knoll says it was already an existing MyndVR customers before the study began. Upon request, they purchased more devices to have a total of seven kits.

The retirement community says the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the increased realities of isolation spurred its decision to participate in the study.

"I think COVID really strengthened the need for that," Maple Knoll Village Vice President of Marketing and Business Development Megan Ulrich said. "So many people were combating, you know, depression, isolation, loneliness. And if we can give them an opportunity to experience new education, travel somewhere safely without ever leaving their home, this is something that I think it's going to be a huge benefit to our seniors."

Ulrich says to not discredit seniors when it comes to VR, especially considering some have lived through the development of televisions, cellphones, computers, tablets and now virtual realities.

One Maple Knoll resident participating in the trial and who helped financially back the opportunity to bring VR to Maple Knoll is Barb Desalvo.

Desalvo, 79, strapped on the headset and narrated her virtual experience of being on stage during the opening number of Disney's "The Lion King" stage production.

“I think it’s just a hoot to do this," Desalvo said about her VR experience. "But, besides that, I think there are a lot of people that are not as active and can’t get out as easily or are isolated because of family or whatever. This just takes you to another world altogether. And that’s so refreshing and comforting, I think.”

MyndVR says it is also aware that the virtual reality headsets can potentially do more than provide an entertaining escape.

"What we do envision virtual reality, and especially the product that we're building at MyndVR, is to help with some of those side effects that do come along with dementia, that do come along with Parkinson's, that might come along with ocular degeneration," MyndVR CEO Chris Brickler said. "So we're looking at ways that VR can help make people's lives better."

Brickler says the global study is expected to talk about four to six months to complete with initiation results expected in the first 90 days.