Main reasons to use VR in medicine

Virtual reality technologies, once associated only with gaming, quickly gained popularity in the healthcare world. Medical students use them to learn surgical skills, while experienced surgeons use them to plan complex procedures. VR is just started its way in healthcare, but it is already shown itself to be rather useful. Below, we have listed several areas where virtual and augmented reality has been used.

Here you can see the overall usage of AR and VR in different spheres of life. It becomes clear that AR and VR start to be an integral part of all spheres of life and give them a strong impulse for development. Below, we’d like to list the main applicability of AR and VR in medicine and other spheres.

Thanks to such technologies, the process of learning turned out to be much more interactive, interesting and effective. Students can see and feel the learning material and as a result, remember them in a better way. Especially, this is useful for medical students for they can see and practice different operations and that, in turn, reduced the number of failures in the future.

Visualization is not only helpful for learning. Military pilots use simulators to prepare for their upcoming mission, and projects such as the Surgical Theater and Immersive Touch were among the first to propose a similar simulator for surgeons. These companies visualize CT and MRI data of patients and thus create personalized maps for surgeons. As a result, doctors can examine in detail and in space the object of the forthcoming operation.

According to medical research, patients perform only 30% of the necessary exercises during rehabilitation. And here VR technologies successfully show themselves. They can combine exercise and gamification, increasing engagement.
For example, Neuro Rehab VR, in collaboration with physicians and therapists, develops special machine-trained simulators to adapt each exercise to the therapeutic needs of patients. The goal is to make exercise more interesting and increase patient involvement.

VR devices are being used today to diagnose and prevent vision problems. For example, in Russia, Total Vision has already developed a helmet for diagnosing eye diseases. Special sensors built into the display make it possible to identify “blind spots” in the human eye, which may indicate certain problems associated with visual impairment. The device is currently being tested.
They are also trying to use VR to study the vestibular apparatus. Research is promising not only for medicine, but also for the army, astronautics, and aviation.

The effectiveness of AR and VR technologies in marketing is high. Especially, it is strongly pronounced in pharmaceutical companies. Due to the low prevalence of VR devices, virtual reality was more often used in exhibitions and events. And still, AR apps and 360-degree videos are actively used in the B2C market as one of the most effective means of engaging customers.
For example, migraine drug company Excedrin uses 360-degree video technology to show how uncomfortable people with migraines feel at work.
VR and AR technologies help to get a better and much deeper understanding of some things because you can feel and sense some of them more sharply.

From all of the above, we can conclude that virtual reality has a huge future. It has long been about more than just the technology of the video game industry. Now, these technologies are being introduced into many other areas of human life. And this cannot be ignored. This should be used to get better results and to extend our possibilities.