RedKnight is delighted to announce it has supported SyncVR Medical UK Ltd and South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLaM) with their successful application to Innovate UK’s Mindset: Extended reality for digital mental health competition. The win secures a grant of £231,484 for SyncVR and SLaM to develop the world’s first artificial intelligence (AI)-based, virtual reality (VR) application to support medium and high-risk eating disorder sufferers waiting for treatment.

Eating Disorders (ED), such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge-eating, are serious mental health problems that can severely affect a person’s quality of life, and their families. In the UK, it is estimated there are 1.25 million people with EDs, and a disproportionate number are below the age of 25. People with EDs often suffer with other serious conditions, such as depression and anxiety that need to be managed simultaneously for the best possible outcome. Left untreated, EDs can lead to severe malnutrition, family dysfunction, relationship breakdown and sometimes, tragically, death. Anorexia is known to have the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric condition. As a result, it is vital that ED patients have access to effective and potentially life-saving treatment in a timely manner, however waiting list times for ED treatment on the NHS are increasing.

Since 2017, SLaM has been developing a novel transdiagnostic service for emerging adults with recent ED onset known as FREED (First Episode Rapid Early Intervention for EDs). Patient studies have shown at 12 months nearly 60% of FREED anorexia patients returned to a BMI of 18.5 or greater, therefore showing promise as a service model for emerging adults with EDs.

SyncVR is a market leader for providing extended reality (XR) in healthcare including VR and augmented reality (AR). SyncVR’s novel XR platform allows the company to deliver its own applications and host third parties (similar to Netflix). SyncVR has created several successful mindfulness focused applications which are currently being used in over 125 hospitals across Europe, including 35 NHS trusts.

Mr Floris van der Breggen, Founder and CEO of SyncVR said of the success, ““We’ve worked with many innovation grant consultants across Europe, and in RedKnight finally found a partner who works hands-on, independent and creatively. OASIS is an example of a project in which the process from concept to proposal was incredibly efficient, partly due to RedKnight.“

In addition to FREED methods, OASIS will also be underpinned with mindfulness and dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) elements to provide a rapid, cost-effective and scalable technology. It will provide patients with useful coping and mood management skills to manage their emotions while they wait for therapy and support them in feeling more prepared when they encounter it. Furthermore, OASIS will help reduce the enormous economic burden presented by EDs, which currently cost the UK economy ~£9.4bn annually. It will enable patients to better self-manage their condition, in turn reducing sick days, loss of productivity due to absenteeism, and costs to the healthcare systems worldwide.