Busan National University Hospital and Startup Partner SK Telecom "Preventing Dementia with 5G and VR"

[Asia Economy Reporter Seolgina Jo] SK Telecom is supporting a service that allows elderly users of the Busan Dementia Safety Center to easily use an early cognitive impairment detection program without visiting a hospital.

On the 22nd, SK Telecom announced that it signed a "5G MEC-based VR Elderly Care Pilot Service Agreement" with Busan National University Hospital and LUCID Labs. The three companies plan to provide an early cognitive impairment detection program starting next month by integrating the latest ICT technologies such as 5G, virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI).

Elderly visitors to the Dementia Safety Center can enjoy virtual shooting, puzzle, and memory games using a dedicated VR headset simply by watching, without using their hands. AI analyzes gaze response speed and brainwaves collected by sensors attached to the device to enable cognitive ability testing.

LUCID Labs, an innovative startup that developed AI technology to analyze biometric signals such as gaze and brainwaves of VR device users, provides cognitive ability analysis services to elderly users of the Busan Dementia Safety Center.

Busan National University Hospital remotely monitors in real time the gaze tracking and brainwave sensor data of elderly users utilizing the VR-based cognitive testing service at the Busan Dementia Safety Center. Based on this, the medical staff will conduct professional consultations and analyses and advance cognitive ability enhancement training programs for dementia prevention.

SK Telecom provides 5G MEC-based cloud services to two Busan Dementia Safety Centers and Busan National University Hospital. This enables effective real-time transmission of large volumes of data.

The three companies expect to contribute to improving the quality of life for the elderly and reducing social costs through early dementia detection by leveraging the synergy of SKT’s world-class 5G MEC technology, LUCID Labs’ VR-based cognitive ability analysis solution, and the research experience of Busan National University Hospital’s medical staff, creating a customized healthcare cooperation model for the 5G era.

Yeojiyoung, Head of SK Telecom’s Open Collaboration Group, said, “This collaboration is especially meaningful as it is a joint project with a company that grew through our startup nurturing program. Based on 5G era technology, we will continue to create innovative service offerings and social value creation cases by cooperating with promising startups as well as various partners.”

Lee Jungjoo, Director of Busan National University Hospital, stated, “We plan to provide differentiated healthcare services by applying SKT’s top information and communication technology and LUCID Labs’ innovative VR-based services. We will build a patient-centered smart hospital through digital-based medical innovation such as 5G and AI in response to the rapidly changing medical environment.”

Chaeyongwook, CEO of LUCID Labs, said, “We expect that the VR healthcare service combining 5G MEC technology and biometric signal analysis AI technology will create a new market in the future healthcare field and realize better welfare services.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.