The Drax Files: Virtual Health

Funny, it happened by chance that I wrote several posts in the last time about about mental diseases and Second Life and Draxtor Despres passed the link to his latest machinima:




Of course, this virtual world is a great platform for physically disabled too. Not only to do what they hardly can do in in real life, such as travelling, dancing, meeting others, but also for mental training.  The NOVA Southeastern University College of Healthcare Sciences, USA is running a three year study in Second Life. Assistant professor Sandly Winkler is exploring how mental training in a virtual world can help amputees hoe to better master their daily life. She said: “Second Life is the perfect place for amputees to overcome emotional trauma by sharing stories and realizing they are not alone!” The study, called  "Dissemination of Amputation and Prosthetic Evidenced-based Medicine" is already running over a year.

Taxi to the inworld location:  http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Health%20Adventures%20I/128/128/31

I am sure that this study will end as great success, because many residents of Second Life realize that they "accidental" gained skills through their online activities. This might be some kind of creative work, but also working in certain computer programs or such as writing in a foreign language as I do here in my blog. A friend recently said to me: "Call me crazy, but I am sure that I dance better in real life since I dance at music events in SL!" Also a "real" physical body is virtual. You don't believe me? A dear old aunt of mine lost her left leg as little child during WW2 when her parent's house has been bombed. She is a wonderful person and has been honoured by our president for her life long activities and support of disabled sports. I admire her because she did all that with almost constant pain, pain at the stump in the prosthesis but even more phantom pain in the lost leg. 

Draxtor Despres as well enhanced several skills through Second Life. For the latest German magazine UpToDate I did a Skype interview with Draxtor. He told me that he learned in SL a lot about filming techniques, writing plots and organizing a video production. These are skills that help him in his RL job as journalist. If you happen to read German, please read the article here at page 100: