Provide healthcare professionals with a firsthand account of what it’s truly like to live with Parkinson’s disease psychosis, defined by hallucinations and delusions. We set out to create an interaction that would allow doctors to literally see through the eyes of their patients. The "What Are Your Patients Holding Back?" campaign is an immersive virtual reality experience designed to establish a visceral connection between physicians and patients. By transforming anecdotal accounts of hallucinations and delusions into terrifying, revelatory experiences, we aspired to equip physicians with an unparalleled entry point to empathize with the true nature of the disorder. The latest in the series features a choir of faceless children who appear in the back yard and end up waking the user in the middle of the night with a hauntingly discordant nursery rhyme.

This virtual reality series was created to provide healthcare professionals with a visceral account of what their patients with PDP deal with daily. We created a disturbing and realistic 3-D experiences of what PD hallucinations and delusions look and sound like. These experiences were optimized for two virtual reality platforms. With each scenario, doctors could look at the world from the perspective of a person living with PDP to experience hallucinations and delusions firsthand. The environment was created through CGI, using images, sound effects, and music to tell our story. We worked closely with a top Parkinson’s specialist to ensure the authenticity of the experiences. The latest experience reflects a hallucination commonly seen in patients’ daily lives. “Choir” debuted on the Oculus Rift headset at neurology and psychology conventions in April 2016. Later that year, it was optimized for the Google Cardboard platform, so that the experiences could be hand-delivered by sales representatives at HCP offices. Overall, hundreds of doctors have engaged with the experience and expressed new appreciation for the disease.