TIMELAPSE | European Research Council (ERC)

Client: European Research Council (ERC)

Target Medium: Meta Quest 3

What if we would help more people complete chemotherapy treatment?

Cancer poses one of our time’s greatest societal challenges. While chemotherapy can improve patient’s chances of cure and survival, the long and frequent treatment sessions come with physical and psychological side effects, leading to treatment dropout and higher mortality rates.

Track of Time, a VR experience enhancing the subjective time passage during chemotherapy, aims to change how time is subjectively experiences, with the goal of making sessions feel shorter. Track of Time applies innovative methods combining cognitive science, participatory design and VR.

Rooted in findings on time perception and flow, the app has been developed on theoretical research, content refinement, and clinical validation during the ERC Proof of Concept grant TIMELAPSE.

Following a patient-centered, participatory design approach, the team integrated the invaluable input of cancer patients and clinical staff through interviews and focus groups to guide design choices.

The goal was to enhance the time passage while providing a user-friendly VR experience. Here are the results;

QUALITY: +90% of the test users in the sample enjoyed the experience and found it interesting. +85% found it useful.

TOLERABILITY: +85% of the test users did not report any of the typical symptoms associated with using a VR headset (e.g., headache, nausea, fatigue or dizziness).

TIME PASSAGE: During chemo sessions with VR, the sample group tended to think less about the passage of time compared to sessions without VR. The majority reported that time passage felt very or extremely fast during the VR experience.