HOW CAN VIRTUAL REALITY APPLIED IN HEALTHCARE IN THE FUTURE

HOW CAN VIRTUAL REALITY APPLIED IN HEALTHCARE IN THE FUTURE

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How Can Virtual Reality Applied In Healthcare In The Future

Introduction

            Emerging changes in the delivery of healthcare are playing a very crucial role on the healthcare’s professional experience structure in a number of ways (Meggs Greer & Collins 2012, 45). Additionally, medicine has evolved through a number of changes over the past five decades. In the modern era, medical knowledge can be argued to double each and every 6-8 years since new medicinal procedures are discovered every day (Atwal Money and Harvey 2014 283). As a result, continuous education has been established as one of the most crucial aspects for both the medical physician and the nurse as well. In other words, all this education process revolves around the restructuring of the curricular and the teaching process, faculty infrastructure improvement most especially in matters of education and performance evaluation strategies. According Atwal Money and Harvey 2014 283, the education model in Nursing and medical field is modeled around the concept “see, one, do one, teach one” in the sense that other educational features such as lectures and films are now being incorporated into the nursing sector. Recent technological advances such as the two-dimensional and three-dimensional virtual worlds coupled with computer simulations can offer the medical field and opportunity to improve on their education and training levels of their health professionals through facilitation of virtual environments (Gorini and Riva 2014 67).

Figure 1: The diverse Potential of VR and AR Applications (source: web images, 2016, the diverse potential of VR and AR Applications. Retrieved from: https://www.google.com/search?q=how+can+virtual+the+Virtual+Reality+apply+to+healthcare+in+the+future+research+paper+pdf&biw=1366&bih=657&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwixuLGhmIfQAhXKrY8KHa9-BD4Q_AUICCgD

            The aim of this research revolves around exploring the benefits and the employment of the VR in healthcare training and education. Additionally, significant literature reviews and projects that have previously been carried out in this field will as well be explored followed by a review of issues that revolve around the current limitations as well as future development directions.

Rationale

            Virtual Reality is a computer-generated simulation of an imagined or real environment. Additionally, the basis of the VR idea revolves around the fact that it can synthesize a 3D graphical environment by computing a numerical data. Additionally, a primary feature of the virtual environment experience is the fact that it can allow individuals to virtually interact with the imagined environment using external input devices such as joystick, mouse or typical VR peripherals that are responding to the user’s emotions and reactions (Ma Jain and Anderson, 2014 45). Moreover, this computer established world can either be a model of an object in the real world or an abstract of the real world that is imaginary but is comprehended by humans like a representation of a chemical molecule (Grajales 2013 57). One primary feature of Virtual environment lies in the fact that it established the possibility of individuals to interact with the environment that is established. As a result, this research topic is important in health sciences because it allows students to learn through immersion and interaction by means of first-person interaction (Ma Jain and Anderson, 2014 45). In other words, firsthand experience plays a significant role in the learning process of medical and health care professionals hence the Virtual environments will help them learn through perpetual illusion of nonmediation since the virtual environments allows for the construction of  knowledge from the direct experience of this healthcare professionals. Moreover, learning through virtual environment is better than other learning techniques since it encourages adaptability, promotes experiential and active learning, encourages visualization and reification and VR itself a very good platform for visualization and reification.

            As much technological advances and other medical advances have made it possible for healthcare and medical professionals a number of innovative training tools, it can be argued that Virtual environment possess the great potential of moving the healthcare professional ton the next level most especially when it comes to the learning process (Ma Jain and Anderson, 2014 45). Additionally, through the promotion of the interaction with the learning subjects, it can be argued that Virtual learning promotes motivation in training coupled with a learning interest that is universally acknowledged as a condition that is very influential in the learning process (Grajales 2013 57). In other words, Virtual learning process allows for the applicability of learning tools that may be very challenging, too costly or rather very simply very impossible to posses the real world.

            It is also universally accepted that the current Virtual training applications in regards to medical and health training differ a lot depending on the technology and the type of attributes that needs to be trained (Ma Jain and Anderson, 2014 45). Additionally, the only application that is common in the modern day healthcare environments is the immersive 3D environments that train individuals in matters of psychology most especially when it comes to the treatment of schizophrenia in an effort to deepen professionals’ comprehension level about the disease.

Reference List

Atwal, A., Money, A. and Harvey, M., 2014. Occupational therapists’ views on using a virtual reality interior design application within the pre-discharge home visit process. Journal of medical Internet research, 16(12), p.e283.

Gorini, A. and Riva, G., 2014. Virtual reality in anxiety disorders: the past and the future. Expert Review of Neurotherapeutics.

Grajales III, F.J., Sheps, S., Ho, K., Novak-Lauscher, H. and Eysenbach, G., 2014. Social media: a review and tutorial of applications in medicine and health care. Journal of medical Internet research, 16(2), p.e13.

Ma, M., Jain, L.C. and Anderson, P. eds., 2014. Virtual, augmented reality and serious games for healthcare 1 (Vol. 1). Berlin: Springer.

Meggs, S. M., Greer, A., & Collins, S. (2012). Virtual reality in interior design education: Enhanced outcomes through constructivist engagement in Second Life. International Journal of Web-Based Learning and Teaching Technologies (IJWLTT), 7(1), 19-35.