Last year, in the midst of a Parkinson’s impulse buying spree, I ordered a virtual reality headset. (Don’t worry, I don’t do this very often!). The Oculus Quest (now the Meta Quest after the rebranding of FaceBook) was recommended by friends from my ping pong class. Trent told me that he played with friends all over the world. I thought, why not give it a try. I had experienced VR headsets during a couple of PD exercise trials and thought it was a lot of fun.

I eagerly opened the package when it came and tried to set it up. Included are two handsets, which are an essential part of the experience because they are programmed to add weight and drag when doing various activities. Not quite sure how to get it to work, I invited Trent to play ping pong with me. He guided me through the ping pong app setup and then we started to play. He was right, this was a lot of fun with the bonus of getting some exercise at the same time. And I didn’t even have to leave home. I could play with friends living anywhere or just by myself. There are lots of options. Is it really intense exercise? I can’t speak for that because I haven’t worked up to that point yet.

So, back to playing with Trent. As usual, he was beating me big time. We were having a lot of fun, until…..

I decided to lean on the virtual ping pong table. Ooops!

Virtual reality means that everthing that you see is fake. In other words, don’t expect the table to actually be there to hold you up.

I put the headset away for a few weeks, months, whatever. At some point, I had subscribed to an exercise app that is a lot of fun, a boxing app and a couple of other highly rated apps. Unfortunately my brain is not necessarily wired for this stuff. I am sure that my 9 year old grandson could teach me how to use it, but I don’t want to embarrass myself asking him for help.

Getting some of the apps to work properly was a challenge, so eventually I just gave up and left the headset sitting in its box, making me feel guilty every time I saw it. So it sat there for months, until my subscription to the exercise app automatically renewed and I thought that it might be time to give it another try.

This time I had a much better experience. The exercise program is great. They offer a lot of different types of exercise from boxing to Zumba to chair yoga and more. The exercises are offered in modules varying in length and difficulty. You can compete with others, or just yourself. There are so many different apps, you can keep yourself busy for hours just trying them out.

If you are worried about balance, many of the exercises can be done while sitting in a chair. You may want to talk to your doctor or physical therapist before trying virtual reality. Maybe you can try it out somewhere before investing in a headset. Otherwise, this rather expensive toy may just gather dust as a constant reminder of an impulse buy gone wrong.

This video, from the Meta website, will give you a taste of what it is all about.

For more information about VR and Parkinson’s, the Davis Phinney Foundation has a great article about it here. There are also a lot of other things you can do besides exercise with VR. Check out the different types of apps available. There is something for everyone.

If you want to order a VR headset, click here to learn more about it. You can buy it directly through Meta, Costco, Amazon and other stores.

Let me know if you ever want to play ping pong!

Have a great week