VR/AR For Healthcare
In recent years, the healthcare industry has seen encouraging results from experimenting with VR and AR for training and educational purposes — from learning anatomy to practising operations to teaching infection control. The technology is helping healthcare professionals (HCPs) to offer better care and advice through the use of apps and to educate patients on health promotion and disease prevention, while reducing the cost to serve.
Here’s how VR and AR can assist the healthcare industry:
Illustrate complex medical concepts
Using VR headsets, simulation technology can offer immersive, intuitive content than what textbooks and standard videos can offer, particularly for complex medical information like how to insert a spinal implant device or how the pancreas produces insulin and the cell’s uptake of it. This application can allow HCPs to further gain greater knowledge to assist them with real-life patients.
Simulation of medical conditions
An interactive, virtual and sensory-rich space can offer HCPs a first-hand experience of what life is like with a particular medical condition for a patient (e.g., migraines, diabetes or multiple sclerosis). By taking a patient-centric view, HCPs can connect with patient experiences through a highly-accurate simulation of a medical condition. This experience can allow them the opportunity to engage patients to make clear and informed decisions.
Therapeutic uses
As part of a larger therapeutic intervention, HCPs can put the technology of VR therapy to use to help patients overcome anxiety, pain, phobias, addictions, and neurological problems such as PTSD, Parkinson’s disease, cerebral palsy and autism. Seeing how people perceive and interact with VR can help HCPs design more effective rehabilitation applications.