• Question: how to you think virtual reality will effect the medical industry and other fields of science

    Asked by 982utec48 to Alison, Hannah, Jonny, MarthaNari, Paul on 21 Jun 2015.
    • Photo: Alison Whitaker

      Alison Whitaker answered on 21 Jun 2015:

      This is a great question, and I’m sure lots of the ways it can be used haven’t been thought of yet (or they have but aren’t talking about them!).
      In medicine I think VR could help with psychological issues, and could changes people’s experience in hospitals. Perhaps in pain clinics, where people are referred to because the case of their pain can’t be treated in a regular hospital, VR could be used to retrain the brain in some way, or distract them so they can find some pain free movement. I did my undergraduate in sport rehabilitation, and I think for people recovering from injury, there might be lots of things you could do with VR to get people moving again pain free.

    • Photo: Martha Havenith

      Martha Havenith answered on 21 Jun 2015:

      As Alison said, training for patients could be a great use for virtual reality in medicine! Some of this is already done. For example, patients with shoulder injuries are put in virtual environments where objects are always a bit further out of reach than they look. That automatically teaches people to start making bigger reaching movements, and that helps get their should back to normal. 🙂

      I think virtual reality could also be very useful for surgeons. Imagine you have tiny surgical tools that you can control remotely through a virtual reality system. This might help surgeons to do tricky surgeries (e.g. on the heart) more precisely, as well as to train their skills during their studies.

    • Photo: Paul Brack

      Paul Brack answered on 24 Jun 2015:

      I think it could be great for surgeons to train with, and it could also be quite a good way to show people what is going to happen to them in their surgery, if such a thing is appropriate.

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