How Is Augmented Reality enabling better experiences for patients and doctors in Healthcare industry?

“These technologies can make life easier, can let us touch people we might not otherwise. These things can profoundly influence life.” — Steve Jobs

Use of technology in medicine and healthcare is a natural extension of the technology boom. With augmented reality technology doctors can show the simulation of a patient’s vision, can demonstrate live surgeries to students and can diagnose patients health in real-time. Following are some of the applications where AR is leading the way.

Hands-On-Training

Medical students and professionals, through simulation environments using Augmented Reality Technology, can learn about diagnosing patients’ health conditions. This is one usage of AR which is growing very rapidly.

Surgery

Becoming a surgeon needs lots of hard work, patience and skill to observe carefully. Surgery is something which can only be mastered by practicing. Currently, this training starts with observing medical procedures being performed by experienced surgeons and then getting started with minor surgeries. This entire process can be replicated virtually using AR, not only this, medical students can practice and deal with different situations virtually. AR now has matured enough to make these virtual surgeries realistic.

Pain Management

Phantom limb pain can be healed using AR technology. With augmented reality, in which the patient wears an AR headset that would superimpose his missing limb. This AR headset enabled him to control a virtual limb with his mind. With this newfound ability to manoeuvre his missing limb in the virtual world, the patient is able to relax the muscles that no longer exist in the real world.

Diagnostics

AR smart glasses can easily replace monitors displaying vital statistics of a patient’s body and its images using an endoscopic camera. We have ultrasound scanners these days which when coupled with an AR glass works as good as a traditional one. This is particularly useful in developing countries, at the time disasters and in the military.

Augmented Reality in healthcare has a very promising future, with its ongoing advancement and rapid growth of mobile internet. Augmented reality is one technology which can make the healthcare experience of patients better. It can make the medical learning of students faster. And early detection of diseases precise. Patients and healthcare professionals have been benefiting from AR like never before, I am pretty sure you will also start using it for one thing or the other in recent future.

Originally published at sugoilabs.com on May 29, 2018.