Introduction
Knocking on your doors: Virtual Reality for healthcare in Singapore. While healthcare is no stranger to technology, it took a while before extensively embracing Virtual Reality. Recent viral articles, such as an English hospice’s use of Virtual Reality to allow the terminally ill to revisit areas, show how effective Virtual Reality for healthcare can be.
We elucidate a few of such applications that caught our eyes!
General Health & Virtual Reality
Imagine lush, open fields. A gurgling brook that playfully winds down from pristine mountains. You can smell the fresh air. You feel calm and inner quiet. Welcome to the development of mindfulness in Virtual Reality. Such wellness programs are finding it’s place as Virtual Reality mobile applications. So throw on the headset, breathe in, breathe out.
Mosquito Prevention Programs
Dengue and Zika make perennial headlines in Singapore. However? Fogging will have very limited effectiveness if the public does not care for preventing the formation of mosquito breeding hazards at home.
Bayer, in partnership with NEA, initiated the novel use of Virtual Reality for healthcare education. Instead of using conventional slide decks and handing out brochures, they placed headsets on the public.
The person now enters a sleek apartment and is challenged to spot mosquito hazards while the clock ticks down. Extra rewards are given for spotting difficult hazards!
This proved to be highly engaging. Users learned about mosquito hazards and also starting talking to others about the educational experience!! Try the app out by downloading it here.
VizioFly was proud to be the VR content creator for this successful project.
Clinical Usage of Virtual Reality
Exposure therapy had been cumbersome as the actual phobia had to be physically re-created. Imagine post-traumatic stress disorders due to war. How would one re-create that for therapy?
In steps, Virtual Reality. By using 3D gaming software and models, cities in Iraq and Afghanistan were re-created and veterans could use them to confront and treat their trauma.
Such exposure therapy extends to those who may have certain societal difficulties such as agoraphobia. By placing a 360°, VR camera within a crowded place, a person can be immersed and feel like he is in a crowd. Different degrees of crowding could be filmed and an agoraphobic person could gradually be acclimatizing himself with a crowd.
Training of Medical Students
A blindingly obvious use of Virtual Reality in healthcare. By creating accurate and realistic 3D models of the human body and it’s organs, medical students can visually grasp concepts and learn ever more deeply.
Universities are also exploring the use of Virtual Reality in surgical training. Due to the scarcity of cadavers, students can first train preliminary techniques on virtual cadavers.
Of course, there is a whole range of other initiatives to leverage virtual reality for healthcare – from dementia treatments to retina surgery training to physiotherapy.
In fact, find out other ways that technology is fusing with healthcare by checking out this link!
Meanwhile, do reach out to us if you have any questions on Virtual Reality for healthcare and other areas!
