According to a report by Grand View Research, Inc. the global augmented reality & virtual reality in healthcare market is expected to reach USD 5.1 billion by 2025.
It is apparent that there are already a large number of medical professionals who are taking advantage of the benefits of virtual reality in medicine.
In this article I will explore two amazing benefits of virtual reality in medicine: pain relief and medical training.
Pain relief is one of many amazing benefits of virtual reality in medicine.
There have been an increased number of doctors and nurses who have been offering their patients the opportunity to wear VR headsets in order to help reduce pain.
When someone is immersed in a 360 degree, multi-dimensional environment the subject receives an increased number of signals to the brain relevant to this experience. These newly introduced brain signals, in essence, distract the patient from the pain. The area of the brain associated to pain, the somatosensory cortex and the insula, become less active when the patient is immersed in VR. The more engaged and immersed the patient is in virtual reality, the more these pain pathways are closed down, and the less pain the patient feels.
"Thanks to 360 VR, many burn victims say that they practically forget that their wounds are there and experience significantly less anxiety"
Those who have undergone operations and those who have been involved in accidents are really starting to take advantage of the amazing benefits of virtual reality in medicine. For example, some medical professionals have started immersing burn victims in VR so they can tolerate the excruciating pain caused by the changing and cleaning of dressings. Thanks to 360 VR, many burn victims say that they practically forget that their wounds are there and experience significantly less anxiety.
Watch the TED Talk below on how VR can help reduce pain. Bear in mind this was published over two years ago!
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It is difficult to include all the amazing benefits of virtual reality in medicine in one article, however another useful use of VR is medical training.
There has been a significant increase in the number of medical trainees and professionals who have been using virtual reality to practice carrying out otherwise expensive, time-consuming and high stress surgical procedures. VR has also been used by healthcare professionals to learn about the human anatomy and to teach infection control.
VR medical training is hands-on. You are in full control of a procedure while being in a safe environment. If you make a mistake you won't harm your patient, instead, you'll just learn from your mistakes and improve next time round. VR medical training is far more effective than passively watching an educational video or shadowing an operation.
Oculus and Children’s Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) created a VR simulation that places medical students and staff in rare yet high-risk paediatric trauma situations where split-second decisions determine whether a patient lives or dies. Watch the video below.