VR to revolutionize healthcare industry

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VR is an emerging technology in the market. It is seen to influence almost all sectors from education to agriculture. Scientists are developing new ways to incorporate VR in each sector. So in all this, healthcare couldn’t be far behind.

Healthcare is one of the biggest industries to exist. We all are the beneficiary of a great healthcare system in this world. Deaths are reduced, epidemics are controlled and a child gets to live beyond a month all because of developing healthcare. Technology has helped healthcare reach out far and wide in this world. New operating robots and equipment, cheaper vaccines and better medicines are all by-products of technology.

How healthcare is getting the VR boost?

Seeing this, does VR have anything new to bring to the healthcare industry? Let us see:

VR could help in planning surgeries.

With VR, the surgeons can check the patient’s body statistics, and plan the surgery from head to toe. Sometimes for difficult or fragile areas of body such as heart or nervous system becomes a tedious and risky surgery to perform. But with VR the doctors can visualise and simulate the whole process before diving in for the job.

VR can live-stream surgeries.

Medical student community can greatly benefit from live-streaming surgeries. Getting exposed to immersive technologies could help students visualise the whole surgery rather than a 2D video streaming. This would also help doctors propagate different surgical techniques for the trickiest surgeries performed in the world. VR streaming would also mean students are getting 360-degree view of the whole process and patient’s body. And this could be streamed anywhere in the planet as long as you have a VR headset and a surgery-streaming app.

VR could treat stroke victims.

Victims of stroke sometimes lose vital locomotive functions in their body. With the help of VR, they could regain their lost control and balance. Certain equipment can work with VR to make patients visualise their actions, thereby tricking their brains to perform it.

VR could help ease trauma and fear.

Patients could undergo more effective treatments for post traumatic stress, phobias and pain all through VR. Doctors and therapists could simulate an immersive environment where patients could be guided to get over their fear or pain. This looks like VR may be the best buddy for therapists in the coming future.

VR can revolutionize diagnostics.

Fear those huge CT scans, ultrasounds and MRIs? VR could help you diagnose at home itself. Just by using a VR headset, your doctor could look at your problem areas, having 360-degree view of the organs and the system. Hence, all the expensive tests may go way thanks to VR.

Thus, VR has a vast potential in the medicine and  healthcare sector. There are lot more opportunities to explore in applications. But with the increasing demand and popularity of VR, it seems that the future is nearer. We could finally have an affordable and reliable healthcare industry after all.

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Tech blogger and content writer. Check out my Quora profile at https://www.quora.com/profile/Atmaja-Chowdhury. Contact me at lizathefeluda@gmail.com