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4 Ways the Healthcare Industry Benefit of Virtual Reality

Amazed seeing the title? Thinking how can Virtual Reality benefit the healthcare industry? Isn’t it in use in the video gaming world? Yes, of course. Virtual reality is in use in the world of video games but it’s certainly not limited to it. Today, it is finding usage in various other industries and one of the most dominant names here is the industry of healthcare. Scientists and the medical professionals today are making use of it to train, diagnose as well as treat the patients in several ways.

Here are a few ways in which Virtual Reality is changing the healthcare industry.

Transforming Psychological Therapy

Virtual Reality is finding usage in various therapies today. It is finding popular usage in exposure therapy. Virtual Reality provides a controlled environment where the patients are provided an opportunity to face their fear.  They can also practice the coping strategies in a safe as well as private setting.

Exposure therapy is one of the best treatments offered to the people suffering from anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.

There are several studies that prove that this therapy can cast a positive impact on the people who are suffering from several other conditions as well like social anxiety and fear of flying.

Assisting Medical Training

Virtual Reality is in popular usage today as a mode to train the healthcare experts. It is finding usage in the medical schools as well as other settings as a mode of education and instruction.  This is allowing the medical professionals undertake the procedures that they don’t come across regularly in real life settings. The CEO of Miami Children’s Health System, Dr. Narendra Kini has pointed out that the retention level of the delivered instruction is much better in this case as compared to the traditional training sessions.

“The level of understanding through VR is great because humans are primarily visual and VR is a visual format,” pointed out Kini. “We believe that there are numerous opportunities where repetitive training and skill set maintenance are critical for outcomes. Since there are not enough patients in many cases to maintain these skill sets, virtual reality is a real addition to the arsenal. Imagine also scenarios where we need to practice for accreditation and or compliance. In these situations virtual reality is a god-send.”

Bettering Pain Management Treatment

Virtual Reality finds widespread usage in a number of painful treatments. The participants report reduced level of pain as well as general distress and prefer usage of this procedure for the painful medical procedures.

The suffering and the amount of pain suffered by the burn patients is a worldwide problem. Moreover, burn care treatment involves an array of procedures like wound care, dressing as well as other rehabilitation activities that inflict more pain. Pain perception has a strong psychological component associated with it. Virtual Reality makes use of this perception. The patient will interpret the same signal of pain in different ways depending on his mindset. Virtual Reality draws the patients into another world, thereby draining the attention resources. Pain, in this case, no longer remains the focus of the patients, but on the contrary, it serves as a distraction, distracting the patients of the chief objective of checking the virtual world.

Virtual Reality today is finding usage in treating chronic pain as well. Retraining the brain has the capacity to restore mobility to the patients with injuries or if they are facing any difficulty in moving around.

Improving Diagnosis

VR technology is now in use for the diagnosis of varying ailments ranging from schizophrenia and Alzheimer’s disease to the traumatic brain injuries.

This technology is popularly used by the healthcare professionals as it allows the doctors to diagnose an ailment better. To diagnose a condition, the healthcare professionals are required to carry on an array of tests. The tests produce a set of data. VR technology can be used for the creation of visual explanation of the acquired data. This data is easy to read as well as interpret.

Usage of Virtual Reality in the healthcare industry in still in its infancy. However, it represents a promising direction in this industry and we hope that it would soon revolutionize the very way health care is offered today.

Written By

He is the head of Sales and Customer Relations. Bio, Has been in the DME (Durable Medical Equipment) and Long Term Care Sales industry for over 20 years. Brought his experience and expertise to Mobi Medical in 2014 as VP of Sales and Customer relations.

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