Sing from your Seat: community singing in the great outdoors in VR as a beneficial intervention for the elderly

The research project 'The Hills are Alive: combining the benefits of natural environments and group singing through immersive technologies', successfully developed and implemented a new immersive experience in which individuals participate in a group singing event on a Lake District mountain summit in virtual reality. Conceived with project partners the National Trust and Keswick Museum, this project achieved its core aim to provide opportunities not just for able-bodied participants to enjoy the multiple wellbeing benefits of singing on mountain summits, but also to present opportunities for those otherwise unable to access such activities to do so through an immersive virtual reality experience. To this end, 30 members of the general public tried the experience at Keswick Museum; wearing a microphone, VR headset and headphones, they could participate in an improvised singing workshop, or sing or observe a choral performance on the top of Great Gable. The exhibit which was in situ for 6 weeks was visited by over 50 people (for passive, non-immersive observation of the recorded performances). Beyond the objectives of the original project we devised and tested an efficient workflow for a mobile version of the experience utilising more widely available and cheaper technology. At the Lakes Alive Festival 150 took part in this 'mobile' experience. All participants reported *** and *** after trying both museum and 'mobile' versions of the experience.

This follow-on project adds significant value to these previously defined pathways for impact, by targeting an entirely new community: Elderly people living in sheltered or residential accommodation. This demographic are especially suited to benefit directly from this work, with both group singing activities and access to the outdoors acknowledged in the sector and in academic research as being important to their wellbeing and quality of life. However their engagement was beyond the scope of the original project as even a visit to a museum is not within the everyday capabilities of many residents. A distinct new body of work is therefore needed to disseminate the outputs of the research project in a meaningful way that maximises engagement and meets the specific needs of the elderly community. This work will apply the relevant workflows developed in the research project, and learn from the feedback received from the experiences we piloted, to create a new, bespoke interactive group singing experience for the elderly community. We will work closely with our new partners, AgeUK, and four care homes in Yorkshire, to engage in meaningful knowledge exchange of their expert understanding of this new demographic to devise the new experience with existing partner and artistic director Dave Camlin. We will take our new experience to day centres and care homes in York over a four month period, gathering feedback from participants and staff. We will measure the impact of these public engagement activities through a new model of impact measurement, with different levels of metrics and descriptive understanding, including; the number of individuals trying, rating and returning to the experience; the engagement of users from the perspective of staff, especially considering their relationship with the residents; and, the willingness / enthusiasm of staff to implement the experience as an important intervention / activity to improve the quality of life of their residents.

A new workflow will be developed to enable organisations to integrate our experiences into their activity structures, catering for individual practical requirements, including economic constraints, available in-house technologies and skills sets. This online content will enable organisations unrestricted and easy access to our experience at different levels of participation depending on the resources available, providing a sustainable, impactful and engaging experience with potential benefits across society.

The residents at the care homes and day centres who take part in the activity will directly benefit from this project in a number of ways: through the introduction of immersive experiences via virtual reality technology, engagement with otherwise inaccessible outdoor environments through the immersive experience, and as the experiences engage the participants in a group singing activity. This project will potentially improve the wellbeing of these individuals beyond the benefits to this community of a VR group singing activity itself, as the experience being shared by residents will promote real-life interactions and conversations within the group.

Our project partners Age UK, Wellburn Care Homes and Auden House Daycare Centre will benefit throughout the project, with the VR activity installed as programmed activities that are supported by the project assistant. This will give them a unique opportunity to explore the potential of VR technology and the impact it could have on residents

As an output of this project the whole care home sector will have free and easy access to new resources to improve the quality of life of their residents. Providing cost effective methods to improve the wellbeing of the elderly is a top priority identified by our partners.

The members of the choir taking part in the recording of the new immersive experience will also directly benefit, as they did in the original research project. The feedback of the choir form the original recordings indicates notable contributions of the activity to their wellbeing and self-reported happiness. Some of the choir in this project will be the same singers who took part in the previous recordings, however some new members are expected to join.

The academic community working with VR will benefit from the new effective workflows developed in this project, which will be published, to enable versatile engagement with VR content across platforms.

This project addresses the growing concern amongst society that more is needed to be done to improve the wellbeing and quality of life of the elderly, particularly those in residential or sheltered housing who are often unable to live independent lives and rely on their institutions to provide fulfilling activities. This project, by providing an innovative and cost effective activity that could positively impact the lives of the elderly throughout the care home sector could in turn have a positive effect on the whole of society. The workflows developed will have meaningful application reaching far beyond the communities directly benefiting from this project in any walk of life that might positively utilise immersive technologies.