The healthcare sector has made greater advances during the past few years. It’s practically the height of technology! Virtual reality has countless applications in healthcare, from pain management to patient experience and even education. To say that Virtual Reality just changed the game, after the COVID-19 outbreak, would be significant, alongside other major healthcare technology trends.
This blog describes VR in healthcare by covering how VR experiences work for healthcare and all the advantages and challenges of VR.
What is Virtual Reality in healthcare?
Virtual reality in healthcare is defined as utilizing computer-generated environments, headsets, or other equipment – to assist in medical care and afford improvements. These benefits will not be easily gained with other practices.
Benefits of Virtual Reality in Healthcare
- Rehabilitation
Virtual reality has also been shown to be a valuable resource when it comes to rehabilitation. The immersive experience increases patients’ confidence and prepares them for later recovery aspects. These experiences and elements of VR contribute positively to rehabilitation, which leads to more successful and good patient care and related outcomes.
- Pain management
VR related to pain has a potential advantage. Behavior and Social Networking shows the effectiveness of VR to lower the pain levels in patients who have sustained a burn injury. Additionally, VR use, when compared to traditional techniques such as watching television or listening to music, exhibited more effective responses.
- Physical Therapy
AR and VR represent a powerful set of tools for patients who require physical therapy. One area of extended reality can be advantageous is in increasing patient care and motivation. By gamifying the rehabilitation process, AR and VR provide a break from boring therapy to fun and engaging interactive experiences, while also encouraging patients to stick to their treatment regimen through intrinsically engaging experiences.
- Surgical Skills
VR allows the user to practice a variety of surgeries in virtual space in full 3D using haptic controllers. The VR software has the necessary steps to guide surgeons throughout the procedure. It is also used to help patients prepare for surgery.
- Dentistry Treatments
Can you imagine sitting in a dentist’s chair and having a complete tour of your mouth before the treatment? VR can do it, with a 3D model of the mouth to plan tests, consider risks, and conduct procedures. VR also shows the patient’s experience so that they can have an experience of being treated. This will reduce anxiety and know the procedure even better.
- Phobia Treatment
VR is used to treat phobic patients with virtual stimuli presented to the patient in a safe and controlled setting. For example, in the therapist’s office, VR can allow patients to eliminate the fear of flying practice on virtual flights.
- Improves mental health
VR does have positive effects on mental health care. Studies have shown that VR by itself, or in combination with other therapeutic modalities, can treat anxiety, phobias, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), etc. VR therapy also helps patients cope with depression.
- Education and training
Education and clinical training often overlap; however, education is used for the benefit of a patient and/or family member(s), and also for doctors. The simulated CGI is helpful for patients as they can visualize the condition, the details ultimately better outlining the treatment or care plan.
Challenges of Virtual Reality in Healthcare
Data Encryption
If your VR app needs to exchange data between the device and a remote server at some point, it should be encrypted to protect against tampering and exfiltration of data. You also need to encrypt any stored data if the devices are compromised. This helps protect from data theft.
Regulatory Compliance
VR solutions need to be compliant with the regulations for data. Not only does it guard patient information from breaches and misuse, but it also delineates legal responsibilities as well as builds security and reliability, which is conducive to using these types of technologies in healthcare. Data privacy is especially important with the use of VR and AR experiences since they typically rely on some level of scanning of the environment in order to function properly.
Third-Party Risk Management
If there is any involvement of third parties, you will also need to confirm that they comply with data privacy regulations. Ongoing risk assessments and audits will avoid risks when processing data from these vendors.
Technological Barriers
VR can cause health issues like illness, dizziness, cyber sickness, etc, from mismatched sensory input, which can impact long-duration use. High-end Virtual Reality systems tend to be heavy and require technical skill to properly use, which poses issues to monitoring, particularly for patients.
Cost and Accessibility
VR hardware can also be pricey to procure, creating barriers for small health providers to get one for themselves. As alluded to above, maintaining and updating VR hardware and software can pose a high expense overall.
Conclusion
The potential application of virtual reality in the healthcare sector is appreciating. Patients and healthcare providers can use this in multiple ways, from training and surgery to rehabilitation and pain management. Thus, with its practical use case, VR is offering several benefits to provide advanced patient care.
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