The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), one of the world’s most authoritative official bodies in the field of medicine, recently updated its list for the use of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technologies in medical devices, with 69 medical products integrating AR/VR technologies now approved. The FDA emphasised that “AR and VR have the potential to transform healthcare, delivering novel treatments and diagnostics, and changing how and where care is delivered. The core potential of these technologies in diagnosis and treatment lies in their ability to remotely deliver standard as well as new types of content in a highly immersive and immersive manner, customised for a variety of clinical settings. Doctors, patients and carers can use AR and VR technologies to help them prepare for or perform specific treatments or procedures.”
With the rapid advancement of technology, virtual reality (VR) technology has gone from a science fiction fantasy to a part of our daily lives. Especially in the medical field, the application of VR technology has opened up a new world, not only greatly enriching the form of medical education, but also providing new solutions for surgical training, patient rehabilitation, etc. VR devices are used in a wide range of applications in the medical field, including a variety of use cases such as paediatric diagnosis and treatment, pain management, mental health, neurological disorders, surgical planning, and virtual care. As VR technology continues to develop in the medical field, it is expected to revolutionise healthcare, not only improving the efficiency of diagnosis and treatment, but also contributing to the psychological and physical health of patients, opening up new horizons for future medical development.
Advantages of VR Virtual Reality Medical Training System
- Provides a safe training environment: The VR system eliminates the risk of training in a real environment through virtual simulation, allowing students to practice a variety of complex medical operations over and over again without the risk of injury, thus improving their skills.
- Enhanced interaction and immersion: VR technology creates highly realistic virtual environments where students can experience real clinical scenarios through natural interactive operations. This immersive learning experience helps students better understand and master medical knowledge and skills.
- Real-time feedback and assessment: VR systems can record students’ operations in real time and provide detailed feedback. Teachers can make objective assessments based on this data to help students identify and correct errors in time and improve teaching effectiveness.
- Flexible learning time and place: VR medical training system breaks the limitation of time and place, students can practice anytime and anywhere according to their own schedule. This flexibility greatly improves learning efficiency and autonomy.
Main Applications of Virtual Reality in Healthcare
- Surgical training and simulation: with VR technology, medical students and surgeons can practice surgery in a safe virtual environment, where they can not only operate repeatedly, but also get real-time feedback. This immersive training method greatly reduces the psychological pressure on learners and improves their practical ability. For example, the virtual surgery system can simulate various situations and emergencies in real surgeries, making doctors more comfortable when facing actual operations.
- Anatomy teaching: While traditional medical education relies on books and physical models, VR technology provides a more intuitive and interactive learning platform. Students can go deep inside the human body through VR equipment, observe the structure and function of different organs, and even simulate surgical operations. Through the 3D virtual anatomy model, students can intuitively observe and operate all kinds of anatomical structures, and gain a deeper understanding of the complex structure and functional relationship of the human body.
- Patient rehabilitation training: VR technology is also widely used in patient rehabilitation training. Through the virtual reality environment, patients can carry out rehabilitation training in a virtual world and complete various tasks and activities, and this method is especially suitable for rehabilitation training after stroke or brain injury. Virtual reality can not only provide rich rehabilitation training scenarios, but also make personalized adjustments according to the patient’s rehabilitation progress and improve the rehabilitation effect. In addition, VR technology can record the patient’s rehabilitation data and help doctors monitor the patient’s recovery progress in real time.
- Pain management and psychotherapy: Through VR technology, patients can enter a relaxing virtual environment, which distracts them from pain and reduces pain perception. This approach has been used in pain management for burn patients with significant results. At the same time, virtual reality has also been used to treat a variety of psychological disorders, such as phobias and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Patients can gradually face and overcome their fears in the virtual environment to achieve the effect of psychotherapy.
Future Development Prospects
- Continuous progress of technology: with the continuous progress of virtual reality technology, VR medical training systems will become more realistic and efficient. Higher resolution display devices, more natural interaction and smarter feedback systems will further enhance the learning experience and effect.
- Convergence of Artificial Intelligence: The convergence of artificial intelligence technology will bring more possibilities for VR medical training system. Intelligent diagnosis, personalized learning paths, automated assessment and other functions will make the system more intelligent and personalized, improving the relevance and effectiveness of teaching.
Interdisciplinary cooperation: in the future, VR medical training systems will integrate more deeply with technologies and methods from other disciplines. Through interdisciplinary cooperation, a more comprehensive and innovative teaching system can be developed to promote the overall progress of medical education. - Globalized sharing of educational resources: VR technology will facilitate the sharing of medical education resources on a global scale. Through an online platform, students and teachers around the world can share virtual courses and training resources, promoting the globalization of medical education. Doctors can also participate in surgeries remotely through VR devices to provide professional medical services to patients in remote areas.
- Personalized medical education and treatment: virtual reality technology will be combined with big data and artificial intelligence to achieve more personalized medical services. By collecting and analysing user feedback, VR systems can provide customized treatment plans and rehabilitation plans to improve treatment effectiveness and efficiency. For example, by analyzing patients’ rehabilitation data, the system can adjust the training tasks and difficulty in real time to provide more accurate rehabilitation guidance.
The application of virtual reality technology in the medical field demonstrates its unique value and potential. From medical education to surgical training to patient rehabilitation, VR technology is gradually changing the face of the medical industry. Although there are still some challenges in the current application of VR in various fields, such as high cost, technology standardization and other issues, with the continuous progress of technology and the gradual reduction of cost, the prospect of the application of VR technology in the medical field is undoubtedly bright.
