Virtual Reality in Healthcare
Virtual Reality (VR) is an experience where the participant becomes oblivious to the outside world and is, instead, immersed and transported into an interactive experience which is entirely computer generated. Auditory, visual and some sensory attributes such as touch are part of this experience. From fear and phobias to pain management, VR is being used to help in the treatment of many illnesses, physical and mental and is having some amazing results.
In fact, Goldman Sachs predicts that by 2025, the global market for VR and AR (Augmented Reality) will be over $5billion and will be used by around 3.5 million people.
1. Non-Invasive
1.1 Fears, Phobias and Paranoia
The treatment of fears and phobias using VR has been going on for many years now and is well established. The idea is to use graded-exposure therapy where someone is gradually exposed to their fear or phobia. As you can imagine using VR is the perfect answer. It is also used to help cure post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD, in the same way.
Those suffering with the condition of paranoia can also be helped using the same principles. In this case more and more characters (avatars) are added slowly into the VR session since patients generally exhibit a lack of trust in people. They will often avoid eye contact as they see this as a defense mechanism. In 2016, Professor Daniel Freeman from Oxford University’s Department of Psychiatry and his team showed that be getting them to stay in the situation and learn that it was safe they would start to feel better.
The work with paranoia has been going on for a while and some clinics already offer this treatment.
1.1.1 Graded-Therapy
This is one of three forms of exposure therapy, along with flooding and systematic desensitization. As the name suggests, there is a ‘fear hierarchy’ of stimuli and those that have been identified to cause the patient’s fear are introduced slowly until the patient can withstand more and more and eventually cope with the whole situation.
1.2 Therapy for Stuttering
While studying for an MSc, Gareth Walkom, having developed a stutter at the age of 6, has written VR software to deal with it. With a similar idea to treating fears and phobias, Gareth has written software for a Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy, VRET, device that uses the idea of exposure and puts users in a variety of situations where they would generally stutter.
According to Gareth, repeated exposure will reduce their anxiety to such situations and help them overcome their stutter. A self-help group at Nottingham Trent University showed an improvement in anxiety levels after the patient had used the software several times.
1.3 Helping Dementia Patients
1.3.1 Comforting Patients
The “Wayback” project, funded through Kickstarter, uses a series of VR memory films going back to past major events to comfort those with Alzheimer’s. It is well known that sufferers tend to remember past events more than those which have happened more recently, so this is not as strange as it seems. They often also have difficulty in doing more than one thing at a time.
In Figure 1, we see Baddeley’s working model of memory. The deterioration of the central executive results in difficulty in a patient performing two or more tasks.
Wayback’s first film is set at the time of the Queen’s Coronation, June 2nd, 1953. Throughout the film there are references to various historical events and there is a street party which most sufferers, as children, would have attended. The costumes, food and sounds are designed to bring that moment back to life for the person watching, enabling them to have a conversation with a loved one.
Wayback is creating more films and in Figure 2, the war hero says his experience is “fantastic” and enjoyed seeing gorillas in the film that he was watching. It prompted a memory where he said that it had been a lifelong ambition to see one close.
1.3.2 Early Diagnosis
Scientists have come up with a VR game to identify early stage dementia. Navigation skills are the first to go and Dr Hugo Spiers from UCL, London, has been using Sea Hero Quest VR, written by Glitchers, and has been analyzing the results for various people who have played the game. He says that within 2 minutes he can tell more about the state of a patient’s mind than if he had spent a few hours in their presence.
1.4 Helping People with Depression
A study has found that over half the participants had a decrease in this condition after using immersive therapy. In the study, led by UCL and ICREA-University of Barcelona in 2015, the patient was shown a crying child and asked to console them and stop them crying. Those words of compassion were then played back to the patient. The patient had then taken the place of the child and saw themselves delivering the words of compassion, this time to themselves.
This helps them be less critical of themselves. This treatment is already available in treatment centers across the world.
1.5 Cognitive Rehabilitation
People who have had a brain injury from a stroke or trauma often struggle with everyday situations and tasks. By recreating these experiences within a VR session, patients can learn how to interact in these situations and the more they do this the better their cognitive ability becomes.
Hot on the heels of this is the idea that areas of memory loss can be identified by doctors using the same VR sessions and assessing the variety of tasks that the patient can and can’t do.
1.6 Physical Therapy
Movements can be tracked using VR so getting a patient to catch a ball, for example, within a VR session the patient can use the session as part of their required therapy exercises. This could be used in conjunction with gym sessions to improve the patient’s recovery rate.
2 Invasive
2.1 Surgery
As you can imagine, VR can and is being used in surgery. Patients can be immersed in a VR session while an operation is being performed. José Luis Mosso Vazquez, working at the Panamerican University of Mexico City, is on a mission to bring VR to the operating theatre. He uses local anesthetics in operations that would normally have used high strength pain killers, his weapon being that of an intense VR session for the patient which is used as a measure of distraction while he operates.
It is also being used to train surgeons and whilst operating where they can visualize anatomy. EchoPixel has created software that can help surgeons so that they don’t have to rely on 2D anymore. With reference to Figure 3, a doctor can use a pointing device to get better measurements. The device allows them to interact with parts of the body and work out measurements in a more accurate way.
Summary
VR has proved itself to be very useful in the domain of healthcare. If the Goldman Sachs’ prediction is true, by 2025 healthcare will be revolutionized by the VR procedures we currently know about and undoubtedly more that are yet to be invented.
