Virtual reality (VR) is a computer-generated simulation of real world environment. VR headsets allow users to experience virtual environments without leaving their homes. These headsets have been widely used in many industries including gaming, entertainment, education, medicine, and military training. In healthcare, VR technology is being developed to help patients recover faster after surgery, improve patient safety, and provide doctors with a better understanding of disease processes.
It’s no secret that healthcare is in a state of flux. Costs are skyrocketing, access to care is becoming increasingly difficult, and the industry is struggling to keep up with the demand for services. But there’s one area that is beginning to show promise in transforming healthcare: virtual reality.
Virtual reality has the potential to revolutionize the way we provide care. It can be used for everything from training doctors and nurses to providing treatments for conditions like PTSD. And, because it can be done from anywhere, it has the potential to make healthcare more accessible to everyone.
In this blog, we’ll explore how virtual reality is being used in healthcare and what the potential implications are for the future of the industry. We’ll also discuss some of the challenges that need to be addressed before VR can truly transform healthcare. So if you’re interested in learning more about how VR could shape the future of healthcare, read on!
Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation
Virtual reality allows users to interact with three-dimensional images. Healthcare professionals are using VR to provide patients with immersive experiences that can help them overcome pain, fear, and other challenges associated with treatment. Currently, many medical facilities use VR to train staff for surgeries and medical procedures. This is especially useful for physical therapists who work with patients after an injury or surgery. It helps prepare staff by allowing them to perform different scenarios so they can better treat their patients. Surgeons also use VR before performing complex procedures on human patients. This allows them to practice before performing surgery on living humans. In addition, mental health professionals can use VR to treat issues related to anxiety and PTSD. Some people use their smart phones or computers to create VR environments for therapeutic purposes. However, large arcades have begun to sell stand-alone VR systems for home use.
VR can be used to help patients with a wide variety of conditions, including:
- Chronic pain
- Anxiety disorders
- Phobias
- Stroke rehabilitation
- Burn rehabilitation
VR is also being used to train healthcare professionals, allowing them to gain experience in a safe and controlled environment. The Impact of Virtual Reality in Healthcare Virtual reality is a technology that allows users to interact with computer-generated environments in a way that feels realistic. This technology is increasingly being used in healthcare, as it offers new ways to train healthcare professionals, provide treatment for conditions such as anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and even help patients rehabilitation after surgery.
While the potential benefits of virtual reality in healthcare are significant, there are also some potential risks that need to be considered. For example, patients with certain mental health conditions may find VR environments to be triggering or overwhelming. Virtual reality technology strengthens task-oriented practise and voluntary repetition, both of which are essential components in motor rehabilitation following a neurological trauma. When brain reconfiguration is at its most advanced during the early stages of recovery, individuals can participate in high intensity, high repetition programmes. Virtual reality has the power to captivate people of all ages. It offers the adaptability needed for patients to make advantage of the fundamentals of neuroplasticity, including using it to enhance their condition. Robotics can engage a patient in helpful movements with non-immersive VR, allowing for the high repetitions required to retrain the brain.
Additionally, it enables low-impact therapy plans for patients with underlying illnesses. VR has the has the capability to alter rehabilitation since it enables the translation of user movement to occupational tasks or simulations when the patient is still unable to engage in the actual activities.
Psychology and Counselling
VR, is an exciting technology that has the potential to revolutionize how we interact with the world. It’s a simulation, generated by software, which can allow us to experience a different environment or with other people. This makes it an ideal form of therapy for treating psychological disorders. However, there’s still a lot of work to be done before VR is as effective as we’d like it to be.
The mental health benefits of virtual reality are growing thanks to its ease of use and affordability. In 2016, the National Institutes of Health spent $60 million on VR research projects. This was significantly more than they spent on research into gaming the previous year.
VR has already started being used in clinical settings to treat anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The former is a condition where you feel constantly worried and tense without knowing why. The latter is when you’re constantly bombarded with horrific memories from your past; these can seriously affect your everyday life. Both of these issues can be cured using VR, it lets you feel like you’re somewhere else without risking harm to yourself or others.
Virtual reality also has the potential to treat substance abuse issues. Doing so allows healthcare professionals to safely deliver treatment programs to vulnerable patients. It’s also much easier for everyone involved if healthcare providers don’t have to speak with patients face-to-face. This way, they can focus all their attention on fixing the issues plaguing their patients’ minds- not theirs. Instead of treating physical symptoms, VR therapists can work directly with patient minds to help them recover. Since then, there’s been a lot of innovation when it comes down to using virtual reality in mental health treatment. For example, there are now apps that allow people with disabilities to experience VR safely and easily. There’s also software that allows doctors to prescribe virtual reality as exercise for their patients’ muscles and joints. This is beneficial in many different ways; it allows people with physical problems to recover from injuries while improving their mental fitness at the same time.
Based on current evidence, VR seems like a promising form of psychological treatment for a wide range of mental health conditions. It’s easy to use and bears minimal risk since users aren’t physically exposed to dangerous situations in virtual environments. As such, it has a lot of promise in future healthcare fields where psychological treatment requires zero contact with patients’ psyches- such as military training or interactive video games for kids with disabilities.
Virtual reality is a powerful tool that can help patients overcome their fears. Exposure therapy, a type of treatment that involves gradually exposing a person to the thing they are afraid of, is often used to help people with phobias and other anxiety disorders. Virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) is a newer type of exposure therapy that uses VR technology to create realistic, controlled environments in which patients can confront their fears in a safe and controlled way.
A number of studies have shown that VRET is an effective treatment for a variety of different fears and anxiety disorders. One study found that VRET was effective in treating patients with a fear of flying. The study found that after eight sessions of VRET, patients had a significant reduction in their fear of flying and were able to fly without any fear or anxiety.
Another study found that VRET was effective in treating patients with social anxiety disorder. The study found that after eight sessions of VRET, patients had a significant reduction in their social anxiety symptoms and were able to function better in social situations.
A number of other studies have also found that VRET is an effective treatment for a variety of other fears and anxiety disorders, including fear of public speaking, fear of heights, fear of snakes, and fear of spiders.
Telemedicine and Remote Patient Care
Telemedicine is the practice of providing medical services via telecommunications technology. In telemedicine, patients have access to doctors and specialists at a distance using video conferencing systems.
- Robotic Surgery via VR Telemedicine
Now, a surgeon can utilise a console to control robotic arms that can perform finer movements than human hands (due to robotic wrist dexterity that is unmatched by human wrists). This implies that choosing a robotic option allows for highly precise minimally invasive surgery.
In a traditional laparoscopy, a surgeon must first review a 2D video screen before doing any procedures. However, using VR, physicians may now watch a 3D film and perform surgical procedures without ever taking their eyes off the screen. When it comes to telemedicine, this advancement has significantly changed things.
But as VR develops, it’s now possible to use 3D consoles to make the experience immersive and assist telemedicine in a variety of ways.
- VR Telemedicine in Skills Training
For a while now, VR technology has been used to train a variety of professionals. These include sectors like space exploration and military hardware. In order to aid doctors practising in remote places, some of the same technologies that have been employed in other sectors can be brought into healthcare. This in turn can improve peer review and quality assurance while making it possible to finish difficult medical operations. Additionally, non-clinicians can get specialised training for emergency operations like performing CPR. Although VR in telemedicine has improved substantially, there is still a long way to go because this technology is still in its infancy.
Before we realise the full potential of VR technology in healthcare, there may be challenges to overcome, like with any new technology. Low adoption rates and high costs could be examples of these roadblocks, although they might also be temporary. By eliminating the need for additional medical equipment purchases, VR technology has the potential to save costs over time. Additionally, it can speed up several processes, which will greatly reduce costs.
Since virtual reality (VR) technology in telemedicine is just getting started, the sector is likely to experience significant growth over the next three years.
- Remote Patient Care
Monitoring patients face to face during pandemic or at other unlikely conditions is quite risky for medical professionals. In order to overcome this situation a practice called Telemonitoring is implemented. Telemonitoring is a practice of remotely monitoring a patient’s health using information made available through technology. Telemonitoring systems are potential methods for reducing clinical problem rates in long-term patients, such as those with neurological illnesses. For instance, it has been used successfully in individuals with multiple sclerosis and neuromuscular disorders. Telemonitoring systems assess patients’ biometrics and transmit physiological and/or behavioural data to doctors via synchronous or asynchronous videoconferencing, such as heart rate, breathing rate, walking pattern, and motor functions. In a health telematic network, telemonitoring has also been suggested as a way to transmit fresh data needed for differential diagnosis or to stage disorders. Recently, patients with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 have been monitored remotely using telemonitoring, allowing for the early detection of increasing symptoms. This strategy would limit the number of hospitalizations, maximize healthcare resources, and lessen the risk of virus transmission, making it particularly useful for telemonitoring COVID-19 patients with other chronic or high-risk pathologies (such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, and myasthenia gravis).
Organised Care and Post-Discharge Training
After surgery, post-hospital patients can benefit from VR training to help with their physical health. It provides a healthy environment for physical and rehabilitation exercises. Patients can use it to practice walking or running before they begin their physical therapy. This minimizes risk of injury and maximizes physical fitness while minimizing the time needed for training. Plus, it’s an effective way to educate and inform patients about their medical condition and treatment options.
After surgery, post-room care can use virtual reality to maintain a post-room home. Virtual caretakers help new residents acclimate to their new living conditions post-discharge. This minimizes time spent travelling between rooms, which frees up time for other activities such as meal preparation, personal hygiene and socialization with other room-mates. Virtual caretakers also help new residents make informed decisions about their medical conditions and treatment options. They can provide moral support during medical procedures and recovery times. Organized care also utilizes virtual reality for educational purposes such as explaining disease prevention strategies or lessons on conflict management between room-mates.
Many post-operative patients are placed in a room for recovery after an operation. This is typically referred as post-operative ward or post-operative rooming-in, and it’s where patients undergo general recovery from their illness or surgery. These rooms are cold, dark and lack natural light- making recovery difficult for patients with weak eyesight or those who have undergone eye surgeries. In addition to minimizing discomfort, VR allows patients to acclimate to their room more quickly and effectively during recovery periods. This improves recovery rates and minimizes the need for nurses or doctors to constantly check on patients.
The possibilities of VR are endless, it can be used for a wide range of purposes such as training, healthcare services and education. It’s also a great tool for maintaining healthy living conditions post-discharge for hospital patients and recovering from surgeries for patients in the post-room environment. The future of VR is here!