“Games and VR have great potential in health and will continue to improve. Meeting your health professional online will become commonplace: over video or over VR depending one what conditions are needed. But also “meet the caregiver” which is an important part as they often coordinate the care. I think in-home assessments will become important and useful. Seeing the person in their whole environment is something OT’s really understand but the rest of healthcare has discarded. It would be possible even now to scan your home and then your health professional can get a sense of it in VR and walk through adaptations. Or even conduct a full assessment.“

“Neurotech is still at the level of mystery and novelty for most people. I think the public expects neurotech to be either a magical cure or some dystopian ‘Black Mirror’-like invasion of human agency and privacy. The answer will be neither. Neuromodulation will certainly provide therapeutic avenues in the future, but we are too far from a curative future. We’ll leave that to gene therapies. For cognitive-motor rehab, precision will be helped with neurotech. There is also some better promise in brain injury and perhaps mood.”

“Here is my fantasy: I sign on to my PT’s website and get a short automated assessment with some easy-to-use forms and a body scan. Then I may get a short video or chat FU with a person. We decide if I need in-person or video or VR-based care. We set up the appointment. I get advice on what to do until then and regular FU. I get a home and work assessment. I meet my PT in person. We work together for an hour. The session is taped and I can review it. I get homework that I can actually accomplish and check-ins to be reminded or adapt. I get visit and data summaries that make sense that I can take easily to another specialist. My PT can coordinate with my health team. We can conf call each other to find solutions. My partner or family can join. My home contractor can get meaningful data on how to set up things in my home for tech accessibility and safety. I feel supported by people instead of watched by technology and my needs are being met. I can be stabilized and even improve. And gosh, let me throw this out there: it is all paid for by insurance from my work.”

“My hope is that instead of targeting a lot of fancy and sexy things with technology, we can handle all the banal and practical things. That is the role of technology. ”