What comes to your mind when you think of Virtual and Augmented Reality? Immersed gamers in their basement living in a virtual world? Geeky millennials with Google Glass checking each other out on the street? The market for virtual reality is expected to grow to USD 53.6 billion by the year 2025.

However, this growth is not just limited to video games and entertainment. VR and AR are having a profound impact in most industries and amongst them, in the Healthcare field. These technologies have an astounding potential for patient pain management, remote healthcare delivery, training applications and reduction of malpractice.

VR, AR AND 3D IMAGING FOR TRAINING PURPOSES

Whether you consider the immersive experience of Virtual Reality, or the enhanced imaging of a true 3D experience, training doctors, healthcare professionals and even patient care is changing for the better.

Medical students and doctors can now use VR goggles to experience a true 3D operation or do pre-operation analysis extracted from MRI imaging, thanks to technology brought to us by medical innovators.

The implications are revolutionary. Now aspiring surgeons can practice on virtual patients while avoiding potential malpractice scenarios.

Healthcare support personnel such as nurses and health technicians can receive training for delicate patient scenarios. Patients can also receive training at home on how to follow their own physical therapy or dress minor wounds.

The practical benefits extend to rural healthcare or geographical areas with low health infrastructure. By pairing generalists in rural areas with specialists in major metropolitan areas, healthcare givers can implement patient care and receive better training without having to travel.

AUGMENTED REALITY TO IMPROVE DOCTOR VISITS

For a more mundane example, let’s look at the regular visit to the doctor. One of the biggest complaints patients have today is the limited time that doctors actually spend listening and paying attention to them. Even when a doctor has asked you a question, they seem to spend more time looking at and typing into their laptop or iPad than actually examining

you.

New Augmented Reality applications leverage Google Glass technology to consult a patient’s records and take voice notes while keeping their full attention on the patient.

HELPING PATIENTS OVERCOME PHOBIAS

Do you have a fear of heights? Do you experience arachnophobia or agoraphobia? Now psychiatrists can help patients overcome all sorts of phobias using Virtual Reality applications.

Instead of having to confront your fears head on, VR experiences can help you confront in with gradually more intense scenarios, according to a recent article in Australian news site news.com.au.

PAIN MANAGEMENT WITH VIRTUAL REALITY

And what about pain management? Some of the most intense patient experiences come after amputations or burn therapy.

Recent work has been done to help patients deal with intense pain by distracting them with immersive 3d Virtual Reality gaming experiences. Applying theories such as Gate Control Theory and Multiple Resources Theory, researchers have been able to reduce pain by reducing the attention, emotion and the association of memory with the presence of pain, through VR gaming experiences.

Many ongoing studies promise further advances in this field, with some of the top medical institutions of the world betting on the VR potential for patient care.

THE COST BENEFIT OF VIRTUAL AND AUGMENTED REALITY

One of the largest cost components of healthcare is travel costs, especially for highly specialized medical professionals. Remote treatment using real-time and augmented reality programs can help reduce this large cost component by helping to bring the expertise of an oncologist or cardiologist to remote areas where travel can be cost-prohibitive.

CONCLUSION

What does the future of healthcare look like when combined with the evolution of VR, AR and 3D technologies? At NEORIS, we believe these technologies are yet to show their true potential. The true challenge lays not on the hardware or it’s already multiple applications, but on the understanding of how it can be used to solve some of the most common obstacles or short-comings of the healthcare industry. What pain points can be avoided with the creative use of such a technology? How can the end user, the patient, benefit from new tailored-training of doctors, nurses and institutions? These are the question worth asking, as every new answer brings us closer to the objective of this entire industry:

Caring for people.

Join this journey at: neoris.com/health