Health

Virtual reality is now being used for health and wellbeing. Taking you to another world, it's shown potential as a mental health treatment, and even in simulating a full-body workout Fancy a serene stroll down a white beach?  You won't have to go much further than your bedroom, as virtual reality programs will soon be offering a calming environment with the choice of meditation. 

Mandy Stevens (right), who is also a registered nurse, began to show initial symptoms of the devastating mental illness in November. But within little more than a week, she was left suicidal and was admitted to a mental health unit. The condition has caused her to spend the past 12 weeks 'completely disabled' in an inpatient ward in the City & Hackney Centre for Mental Health, London. But after being discharged last Friday, she has now shared her story and a selfie of her during her suffering (left) to offer hope to millions of sufferers across the planet.

Adrian Berry (pictured left with his friends), 40, from Wigan, suffered from fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva - that causes bone to form inside muscle, ligaments and tendons. But the accountant managed to live for more than double his predicted life expectancy after he passed away with pneumonia on Boxing Day. However, his family say the disease, which is believed to affect just 3,500 people worldwide and he caught when he just 18-months-old (pictured right as a schoolboy), never stopped him from living life to the full. They even claim that he developed his own style of cross-legged walk to get around in his twilight years.

Peter Lai (main with doctors) was forced to wait in a corridor at St Mary's Hospital, London, for hours as doctors battled to find him a bed in the second installment of BBC2's Hospital. The patient had his surgery scheduled for two months, and had 14 hospital staff prepped and ready to go to treat his aortic aneurysm - which could rupture at any moment and kill him. But doctors were cruelly forced to cancel the procedure at the last moment due to there being no space in the post-surgery unit - leaving his life in danger. His operation was rescheduled for a month later, but he died following a six week battle with pneumonia, leaving viewers heartbroken (tweets inset). Many speculated that had he received better care and the operation wasn't cancelled initially that he would still be alive today.

Even before birth, fetuses can differentiate between light and dark. When they are born, they use this rudimentary understanding of tones to make out shapes.  However, for weeks everything is in black and white as their brain grapples to comprehend how to connect with their eyes.

Pictures show 35-year-old Sulami a woman from the Sragen area of Central Java, in the grip of a disease known as 'bamboo spine' that has turned her completely rigid. According to the Health Department of Sragen, Sulami's suffers from a rare genetic disorder, Ankylosing Spondylitis. Her condition is so bad that she has to rely on help from her 90-year-old grandmother, Suginem, to care for her. For the last 10 years, Sulami has not able to sit or even bend over her body, and has to use a stick in order to help her walk.

Alana Zarate, was born without an ear but still loves to sing and dance to Disney classics. Her mother Sarah Perez has been desperately raising money to fund surgery that will give Alana a new ear. Her mother Sarah Perez, a 31-year-old deputy sheriff in Fresno, California, is desperate for her youngest child to have surgery before she starts school because 'kids can be brutal and it's hard enough as a kid to fit in'.

WARNING GRAPHIC IMAGES: Dee Hicks, from Satellite Beach in Florida, suffered hair loss, chest pain, rashes and depression, and was ultimately bed-ridden for six months before she realised her symptoms matched mould poisoning. Doctors had put the mother of five's (seen left when she was sick and right after having her implants removed) declining health down to the onset of menopause, but she is back to normal since having her mouldy breast implants (inset) removed.

Laura Borrell was diagnosed with frontotemporal degenerative dementia in 2015 when she was just 39. The former Law student from Hertfordshire said that she had a 'real battle' to get her condition diagnosed after neurologists were baffled by her symptoms, which included slurred speech and confusion. She told Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield that one neurologist was 'vile' to her (Pictured: Laura Borrell on This Morning, reaction to her appearance)

Born entangled at the hip and spine (left, shared skin circled) in a rural Ugandan village in September 2014, Acen and Apio Akello left local doctors stunned. With nothing more than rudimentary medicine for miles around, it looked like the girls - the first children of 19-year-old Ester - would face a life of disability and pain. However, surgeons managed to reach the expert separation team at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Their surgery (bottom right) was intensely complicated, involving an entire team of neurophysiological surgeons tasked with separating each nerve to ensure the girls would be able to be independent after. Now, just 16 months later, they are walking (top right) - and their surgeon Dr Gail Besner believes all of their medical woes are behind them.

At two years old, Lexi Pacini, (right with her mother Tammy) from Colorado, was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy - a neuromuscular disease which weakens the physical muscles. Not long after, she was approved for a new clinical drug trial. Now at age 4, Lexi is learning to stand, walk (pictured left with walker), and even climb on her own. But with treatment costing $750,000 her family doesn't know if they can afford it.

Cigarettes feature in all but one of the 24 James Bond movies filmed to date (top right, Timothy Dalton in 1987's The Living Daylights, and bottom right, Sean Connery smoking in 1962's Dr No), new research from the University of Otago, New Zealand, has discovered. Despite 2002's Die Another Day (left, actor Pierce Brosnan pictured with Halle Berry) being the last time he smoked, he is still exposed to second-hand smoke from sexual partners.

Ashleigh Massey (left), from Chessington, struggled with the discomfort in her right leg when it first began in September. But when the pain reduced her to tears just a month later, her parents rushed her to Kingston Hospital in London. Her father, Chris, 40, claims she was initially assessed and told she could return home - but doctors then immediately rang back speaking of their concern. When they returned, she underwent various tests (inset) and scans that confirmed the doctor's suspicions, diagnosing her with osteosarcoma. She has since had two rounds of chemotherapy to fight the disease, and is set to undergo an operation at the end of the month to remove part of the tumour.

Similarly to Apple founder Steve Jobs, Sarah Smith from Kent was diagnosed with Neuroendocrine tumours (NETs) in 2011, growths which were, quite unusually, located in her liver. The tumours secrete large amounts of hormones which cause symptoms such as flushing, cramps, diarrhoea, wheezing, skin problems and abdominal pain depending on where they are, and are commonly confused with menopausal symptoms.

Shona Sibary was in a GP surgery with waiting for her 18-year-old daughter's contraceptive prescription when she found herself wondering, 'Another baby. I could still, couldn’t I?' But she is not alone. This month, mother-of-four Nicole Kidman — who turns 50 in June — bravely admitted she would ‘never say never’ to having another baby. Meanwhile Halle Berry was almost 47 when she had her second child, Susan Sarandon gave birth to her second child at the age of 47, and David Bowie’s wife, Iman, gave birth to her daughter with the rock star when she was 45. Shona, pictured with her brood, asks, ‘Is this some form of middle-aged, pre-menopausal madness? It certainly feels like the cruellest joke in the world.’

Aparajit Lodhi, (left, right) from Jabalpur in the north Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, suffers from a rare congenital anomaly called Macroglossia, a medical term for an unusually large tongue. The congenital overgrowth disorder was discovered when he was born, meaning doctors had to tell Aparajit's parents that he was not going to live very long.

Philippa Gillespie from Haverfordwest (left) and Robert Welch from Grimsby (right) are just two of the victims of medication errors in NHS hospitals whose stories have emerged in the past 18 months alone. Inquests into each of their deaths concluded that drug errors had either caused or played a significant part. And shockingly, their needless suffering is far from unusual.

Carolyn Bjelan from Harrogate was drying her hair one morning last May when she heard a sudden thud downstairs. Hurrying downstairs, she found him unconscious: he had suffered a heart attack.'His chest wasn't moving and no air was coming from his mouth or nose. I called out his name. No answer,' she said. Carolyn checked his pulse and, finding nothing, rang 999 and started CPR. She had first learned the technique 25 years ago when she became a Brownie Guide leader, and over the years she'd been on refresher courses.

Annie Deadman (inset left), a 56-year-old mother-of-two based in South-West London, has devised the Blast! programme, which promises results in just seven days or really quite radical transformations after 21 days. If Annie’s taught me anything it’s that doing something — anything — is better than doing nothing. Both my waistline and my heart are very grateful, says Kathyrn Flett (pictured before and after the programme).

In a short message on her Facebook page (pictured inset) Hannah Lyson, from Lancashire, revealed that she had received the 'worst news imaginable' when she told followers her disease was not responding to treatment. Miss Lyson (pictured left and right) was diagnosed with bowel cancer in May last year when she was just 19 years old. Doctors initially believed the teenager was suffering from irritable bowel syndrome when she complained of back ache and constipation. But tests revealed she had five tumours growing on her bowel and liver. After her devastating diagnoses Miss Lyson set up the blog Hannah's Bowel Cancer Journey chronicling her 'unwavering determination' to beat the disease.