Virtual Reality as a Medical Tool
In recent years, virtual reality devices, including the Oculus Rift, the HTC Vive, and Sony’s PSVR system have exploded in popularity, primarily for their application as gaming devices. Gamers use virtual reality to immerse themselves into their favorite game worlds, racing around a track from the point of view of a racecar driver or looking down at the world from the eyes of a pilot in a flight simulator. Although the technology was originally developed for this purpose, the proliferation of VR headsets has led to their applications in unexpected fields. For example, digital artists have taken advantage of virtual reality to view their creations from different angles or even created sculptures in 3D space using handheld controllers, and businesses have experimented with using virtual reality to hold meetings in a collaborative environment with people hundreds or thousands of miles away. But perhaps the most consequential application of virtual reality is in the healthcare field, as medical professionals are experimenting with using the headsets to treat a variety of conditions.
One application of virtual reality is pain management. For patients with certain conditions, the reality of living with chronic pain, which is resistant to traditional pain medications, can border on the unbearable. Chronic pain can prevent patients from engaging in a number of stimulating activities, confining them to their houses or the hospital. For some patients, pain management is less about reducing the amount of pain felt and more about developing strategies for coping with it. It is theorized that virtual reality can help in this regard by taking the patient’s mind off of their painful experiences by immersing them in a more relaxing environment. Virtual reality has the potential to bring sufferers of chronic pain the experience of sitting by a waterfall, or lying down at the beach, helping to shift their focus away from their pain towards more enjoyable sensations.
Virtual reality shows particular promise in helping with the treatment of psychological conditions. Exposure therapy, for instance, is a method of helping patients address their phobias by introducing the person to their fears in gradual steps, until they are no longer so overwhelmed that their fears negatively impact their lives. Virtual reality can provide patients undergoing exposure therapy with a controlled environment to introduce them to their fears before tackling them in the real world. Someone with a fear of flying, for instance, can have the experience of being inside of an airplane through virtual reality, and would be able to take the headset off at any time. Additionally, variables such as turbulence, or other triggers such as taking off and landing, can be controlled by the therapist, to introduce the patient to these elements when they are ready for them.
Virtual reality has even been used as a pain management tool for women who are in labor, in a study that provided women giving birth with VR headsets which simulated the experience of scuba diving alongside dolphins and manta rays. In this study, the experience of VR lowered the womens’ self-reported levels of pain and anxiety, and 82% of the participants said they very much or completely enjoyed using the technology.
Virtual reality has also been used as a motivational tool for patients who otherwise might neglect to participate in physical therapy as often as they should by making the experience of physical therapy more engaging and entertaining. Certain VR applications require the user to stand up and physically move around, making them useful supplements to some physical therapy. For instance, a VR skiing game might require patients to shift their weight from foot to foot. Additionally, VR programs have been used for patients with mobility or balance issues undergoing physical therapy to provide them with visual feedback to improve their skills.
Doctors, in addition to patients, have seen benefits from using virtual reality. In Minneapolis, doctors recently prepared for a surgery to separate conjoined twins using VR. A medical team took detailed 3D twins of the scans, then used visualization software to project these models in a 3D environment, and used VR headsets to examine the scans in close detail from a variety of angles to determine how best to approach the procedure.
It should be noted that virtual reality comes with its own health risks. People with photo-sensitive epilepsy should not use virtual reality, as rapid changes in the display could trigger seizures, and many people experience a kind of motion sickness when the movement of images in VR headsets do not perfectly line up with the movements of the user’s head. Nevertheless, virtual reality is an exciting new technology, which still has plenty of areas of potential improvement, and the application of VR in the medical field shows promise for bringing relief to patients with any number of maladies.
Tyler Olhorst is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. You can reach him at inquiries@thenationaldigest.com.