Virtual Reality — a Boon to the Healthcare Sector
Diagnosis and treatment in the healthcare sector are getting advanced every day mainly due to technology. Virtual Reality is one such technology playing a vital role in today’s healthcare scenario. Virtual Reality does not stop with fulfilling only the medical needs, it is also helpful in diagnostics, psychological assistance, physiotherapy etc.,
With Virtual Reality, healthcare professionals can get a better and accurate diagnosis by an enhanced understanding of the situation and clear visualization. Surgeons are coming up with better surgical plans as there is the help of VR to practise surgeries beforehand to avoid serious medical errors. Virtual Reality not only helps the professionals, but it also helps patients by assisting in stress-releasing functions. It also helps the patients have a faster recovery. The existing imaging technologies that are used in medical diagnosis can be extended by the adaptation of Virtual Reality.
Virtual Reality in Surgical Planning
With Virtual Reality, the mortality rates of most surgeries have seen to be reduced. Besides the knowledge gained only through books, surgeons need to visualize the complete surgical procedure to provide the right treatment. Virtual Reality comes to help in that place. With Virtual Reality, many types of surgeries including the more complicated ones can be practiced, before picking up a scalpel. There may be many options as treatment but surgeons usually neglect those options which haven’t been practiced on patients before. Virtual Reality helps in practicing every possible medical solution to decide which one goes best in the situation.
With technologies like Virtual Reality, the process of diagnosis has been speeded up. Where most fatal diseases are diagnosed in the early stage, reducing the mortality rate. Virtual Reality is a great training tool for nurses, doctors, surgical residents and all the other healthcare professionals.
Virtual Reality in Physiotherapy
The multisensory simulated environment by Virtual Reality can be used to cope up and bring back the lost motor skills among patients. With practice, a patient’s lost abilities can be brought back. Virtual Reality is creating a completely imaginary scenario that boosts the patients to get a relaxed and well-organized physiotherapy session. This computer-based technology can be used to adjust the intensity and goals according to patients needs and convenience. VR provides task-based games by which the patients will find the process of recovery even more interesting. The recovery rate tends to increase rapidly and the time required for the recovery can be ultimately shortened.
Virtual Reality has been found to serve the following and much more help to the healthcare industry.
- The trial surgeries that surgeons perform with VR before doing the actual surgery on the person tends to decrease the mortality rate and has proven to be a better diagnostic practice.
- Patients cope up better and the postoperative recovery rate has been increased with VR.
- Patients’ stress has seen to be reduced and VR tends to increase the optimism level among the patients as well as the doctors.
- VR is also used in rehabilitation, physiotherapy, neuro therapy and much more. It has been great and the well-being of the patient is maintained.
- VR performs well in terms of pain management.
- Virtual Reality is also used as a tool to educate people with awareness. It gives a caution about major and minor health risks. Which in turn can help in reducing the sick rate.
Virtual Reality can be used for clinical, therapeutic or diagnostic procedures, but it turns out that it is far better than any other traditional practices. Immense knowledge is needed to develop such VR solutions. But the conditions to use VR to learn and diagnose are much easier and faster with today’s technology. Virtual Reality has also been useful for effective communication when it comes to educating patients about many medical terms without worrying about the complexities. Although Virtual Reality is of much use in the healthcare sector, carefully selected high-quality VR tools should be adapted as it is a complex and life-saving sector.
This blog is authored by Ms. Gayathri Krithika, a media professional at Fusion VR, India’s leading provider of VR/AR/MR solutions. She has developed and published technical and creative content for the past few years. She is also a keen blogger and podcaster.
