When most people think of virtual reality, an association automatically goes off in their mind—video games. Its widespread use in this space has to do with the simple fact that video games try their best to bring the player into a completely new world. VR allows developers to take this to a whole new level than a controller, a pair of headphones, and computer monitor would allow. Quite literally, it puts the player at the center of everything that goes on around them in the game. A player fits a VR headset around themselves, and they’ve suddenly jumped into the shoes of whoever they were meant to feel they were. Peeling back all the technological bells and whistles that allow this to happen, and considering what VR does at its core is what has allowed engineers and scientists to apply it towards creating solutions to the problems that the medical field faces. They’ve realized that VR creates a sense of immersion that can be used for the greater good. This thinking process is nothing flashy, really. They aren’t completely reinventing the wheel, or building a piece of tech that nobody would have ever imagined possible. And they certainly aren’t diving into previously untouched waters and resurfacing with the eighth wonder of the world in their hands. Yet they’re making huge impacts by merely working within the constraints of what’s already out there. I think that’s a powerful principle, especially for students like ourselves. Many geniuses have already laid the foundation for groundbreaking change through their inventions. It’s up to our minds now to reimagine what they created and use it to solve the pressing medical issues of our time. In the spirit of motivating you to do the same (and not just with VR, but with other technologies), I wanted to examine two of the ways VR has made its way from consumer electronics into healthcare.
The first may even be one that we will personally familiarize ourselves with as we go through our medical training. Offering physicians a chance to put what they’ve learned to the test by having them directly partake in an operation is always risky. Much care has to be taken to ensure that they will properly make the jump from what to tangible practice. Countless hours are spent learning what they need to know through theory, and then even more time is dedicated to practice with cadavers and simulated environments. What may also be beneficial to this process, though, is the use of VR to simulate part of or an entire surgery. Through its use of immersion, it can allow a training physician to grow intimately familiar with a procedure. Better yet, all the doctor has to do to start again is hit a few buttons, completely removing the need for all the other real-world resources that would otherwise have to be allocated towards making repeated practices possible. VR programs can also be coded with stressful scenarios that can be randomly triggered, creating a more realistic feel for what an operation could entail. This helps physicians better handle the adversities that may come their way once they are in the OR. As VR tech advances, controller gloves may come to completely replace the stick-like controllers that most systems currently use. They have already found their way onto the market, but have yet to see much widespread adoption. However, as they come into the limelight, they might end up landing in the center of med-tech’s vision, and we may very well begin to see programs that allow doctors to involve their fingers in VR surgery simulations. The use of finely-tuned haptic motors in these gloves would also allow doctors to receive sensory feedback that further replicates an actual operation. And where did all this come from in the first place? From people who thought outside the box with what a piece of tech like VR could do.
VR has also started finding its place in mental health care through its use as a method for exposure therapy, a type of cognitive behavioral therapy used for anxiety disorders and similar conditions to—as the name would suggest—expose patients to their triggers in the hopes of helping them become desensitized to them. To give a grossly oversimplified example, a patient with arachnophobia may be presented with items that gradually grow closer to an actual spider by their therapist. At first, they may start with a cartoon of the spider, then move onto a plush spider, then a toy spider that looks quite realistic, and, finally, an actual spider. Along the way, the therapist would guide them in breaking down the phobia in small steps, with the ultimate goal being them losing the phobia entirely. This same principle can be applied towards treating a number of other conditions ranging from OCD to PTSD. As you might imagine, though, limitations could very well hamper its use. It might be difficult to help a patient lose their fear of heights if it requires traveling to a tall building. Or it may be unfeasible to host a social event for a patient with social anxiety disorder to attend. While, in certain cases, the required conditions may not be completely replicable even through VR, it nonetheless offers physicians (yes, psychiatrists are physicians) some flexibility that can let them better fit the treatment plan to their patient. And by simulating other types or therapies or teaching patients various skills within the clinical setting, it can similarly be used to benefit an even wider range of disorders and conditions. Once again, this all has been made possible by breaking down what VR is and finding unconventional uses for it.
Hopefully, these applications of VR inspire some brainstorming of your own. We may not be PIs in labs with large budgets with which to create new technologies ourselves; yet we shouldn’t feel as if we can’t contribute to innovation in the medical space. We’ve grown up with news that keeps us aware of the various issues that stand in the way of a totally healthy world. But we’ve also grown up around innumerable technologies that advance at a seemingly nonstop pace, and flood into our lives just as quickly. Why not take advantage of them? They’re already at our disposal. All it takes is looking at them a bit differently than we currently do to devise new ways of harnessing what they bring to our world. We only need to fuse our societal awareness with our technological knowledge, and then we’re suddenly on our way to having a lasting sociomedical impact. So, what issues do you see affecting the health of people around you? Which ones are you passionate about solving the most? Now, think about the technologies that you’re really familiar with. What are some of the most rudimentary and basic uses for them? How can these be used in the general area you’re concerned about? How could you then make the jump into the issue you want to resolve? And if you can’t come up with answers to these questions right away, it’s okay. Just go on Google and take a look at what others are doing and find something that calls at your ingenuity. Spend enough time considering how you could change the world with our current tech, and I’d bet it won’t be long until you’re inspiring others in the way VR has here.
References
- “How Are Augmented and Virtual Reality Used in Medicine?” Cprime. https://www.cprime.com/resources/blog/how-are-augmented-and-virtual-reality-used-in-medicine/#:~:text=In%2Dhospital%20and%20Remote%20Surgery,various%20scenarios%20that%20might%20occur. Accessed 30 May 2024.
- “Exposure Therapy.” Cleveland Clinic, 9 June 2023. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/treatments/25067-exposure-therapy.
- Villines, Zawn. “VR therapy and its benefits for mental health.” Medical News Today, 13 October 2023. https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/vr-therapy#seeking-help.
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