Corpus VR makes game out of rehabilitation

Founder Gert-Jan Brok: "Our credo is 'Let's play to heal.' Nobody chooses to go to rehab. But people with trauma or other complaints cannot escape it. With a therapist there, it's not so hard to keep up exercises. But if someone has to do it without guidance, it's a completely different story. Then keeping it up requires a lot of discipline."

Game environment

"The exercises in Corpus VR come straight from traditional literature, which have been proving their worth for decades. We translate them into games that contain exactly the same movements. But with a different focus. When you exercise in the traditional way, you are very aware of your body and of the pain. And if you have to raise your arm twenty times, the twentieth time it really doesn't go up that high in the air anymore. If the goal is in the game environment, you think less about it. You do what the game asks of you."

Baseline

Co-founder Kiki Coppelmans: "Unique to our system is that we always start with an individual measurement: the so-called baseline. Based on that, all exercises adjust to what someone can do. If a patient can't get his arm high in the air, the game won't ask for that either. You can't just hunt dragons or pilot a spaceship in Corpus VR. You have to go through the measurements first."

Dashboard

The practitioner can track on a dashboard exactly how often and how long a person exercises. Those results are also fed back to the patient. So the patient can track his or her own progress. And that motivates.

InMotionVR, the company behind Corpus VR, has been in existence since 2016. Meanwhile, the software is used by around 300 customers, both in primary and secondary care. Brok: "In the first line, you're talking about physical therapists who have a pair of glasses. In the second line, the rehabilitation centers, it does involve large numbers. There are also patients who are so happy with this way of exercising that they buy their own VR glasses. But that is not a small expense; not everyone has that option by a long shot."

Health Insurers

Health insurers do not yet reimburse Corpus VR. Brok: "There is already one personal injury insurer that reimburses the use, that is Univé. We are very happy with that. We are now talking to a party that is both a personal injury and health insurance company. Then we can really take steps.

At the moment, income from usage does not yet exceed expenses. "We are still financing with an investor. And we regularly check what grants we qualify for. "

Marathon

Brok has a tip for startups. "Prepare for a marathon in in this market. Even though you may have a fantastic innovation that can make 100 percent of the difference tomorrow. It's not going to be a sprint. It may take years for your innovation to catch on. Make sure you prepare your company for that."

Coppelmans adds: "Innovation means looking beyond the beaten path. Because health insurers do not yet reimburse our innovation, we started looking for other ways to get it covered. That's how we came to personal injury insurers, for example. "

Easier and more fun

"The Inland Revenue is always shouting that they can't make it more fun, they can make it easier. And we have a step ahead of that, we can make practicing easier AND more fun! "