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Blog

VR is Improving Health Care. Here’s How.


For years there’s been a steady chorus that virtual reality would be, as a technology, nothing short of life changing. And while that may sound like hyperbole (and to many, it probably still sounds like that), it’s hard to deny that there are areas in which VR can have enormous impact in our lives.

Many of those who perhaps doubted the kinds of ways VR would change our world, probably think of virtual reality as a the domain of gamers and nerds; the kinds of people who would prefer to escape their real lives in exchange for the virtual. This of course is not only insulting, but wrong, for it’s becoming clearer and clearer that the potential (and current) impacts of VR extend beyond the virtual, and into day to day life.


One of the inescapable truths of life is that each of us, no matter how healthy or strong, will someday require healthcare. Whether it’s superficial or more serious, it’s pretty much a given that every one of us will need medical assistance at some point in our lives and what is becoming almost just as clear is that virtual reality will play a role in the kinds of healthcare we may end up receiving.


We’ve already been over, in this blog, the kinds of VR based training that is out there for future medics and surgeons but the ways that virtual reality can impact healthcare go beyond training and into more focused areas of treatment.


Patients have already seen the kinds of relief that VR can bring to treating fears and phobias, which is one of the more established areas of medical treatment by way of virtual reality through something which is called graded-exposure therapy, where patients are slowly introduced to their fear in VR, whether it’s spiders or heights. But there are numerous other areas of VR treatment to consider when looking at how virtual reality can influence the future of healthcare.


Just as you may face your fears virtually, you can also face simple everyday tasks. Things like shopping or driving may seem like normal everyday stuff that you wouldn’t need to replicate virtually, but for someone with a brain injury, these simple tasks we take for granted are oftentimes struggles that can be worked on, and measured, when treated through VR recreations.


Other simple recreations too can carry big impacts. Even simple body movements tracked as interactions in a VR game are not only often more fun than physical therapy, they can often prove more effective when the virtual world around the patient is controlled to alter the way they sense their own movements.


It’s this connection between the patient and a virtual world that also contributes to pain management, as there is strong evidence to suggest that when a patient is immersed in virtual reality, some parts of the brain linked to pain become less active. Studies have not only shown this, but that amputees can also benefit from a VR therapy known as ‘virtual mirror therapy’. This therapy involves putting on a headset and controlling a virtual version of their absent limb, which seems to allow some patients to cope better with their pain.


These are not only examples of how healthcare is changing because of virtual reality, but examples of how VR can have major impacts in the lives of many; those who would have never considered slipping on a headset, those who never would have considered themselves a “gamer” or a “nerd”. But more than that, it’s is a small slice of how the world is changing and how VR is in the middle of it.