Author: George Nishimura, Content Creator MTF
What even is VR? VR stands for ‘virtual reality’, and is a term used to describe a 3D, computer-generated environment which can be explored and interacted with by a user. This usually happens through a headset - think Meta Quest or previously the Oculus Rift - and it even sometimes has controllers which can allow you to manoeuvre this virtual world. VR slightly differs from AR (‘augmented reality’), where the software interacts with the real world (shout out to Google Glass and all of its lost potential). For the VR, we can broadly split its components into hardware and software, with hardware being the actual headset and software being the programme that’s run on it.
So what’s so exciting about VR at the moment, hasn’t it been around for ages? Whilst it’s true that VR has been at our fingertips for a while, it has never been as accessible as it is today. This is demonstrated by the increasing VR headset unit sales worldwide; in 2019, 5.4 million units were sold, whilst Statista projects that in 2024 this number will jump to 14.3 million units. This incentivises established companies as well as start-ups to brainstorm new software ideas (or even hardware upgrades) to make use of this rapid rise in consumers with hardware. We’ve already seen the start of this acute impact on the VR software market, with Statista projecting an increase from $0.5 billion (2019) to $4 billion (2024) in worldwide VR software revenue. Still not convinced? Well, Grand View Research estimates the global market size for VR to be around $60 billion (as a comparison, the AR market size is roughly half of that), and this too is projected to rise at a rate of nearly 30% through to 2030 - basically, there’s a lot of money in this field and the field is getting bigger and bigger.
Thanks to this newfound consumer uptake of VR hardware, a large number of new softwares for VR are being developed across different industries, for example in healthcare. This includes using VR therapeutically and for the training of both medical students and doctors, but it’s likely that many more uses will be found over the coming years. This article will explore a few use cases in healthcare specifically, and hopefully inspire you in viewing VR as less of a gaming technology and instead a tool that can be used to enhance the future of healthcare.
Use Cases - Dementia, ASD, Medical Education
In the UK, nearly a million people are living with a form of dementia, and this is projected to increase over the next few decades to nearly 2 million. VR can be used as a fantastic tool to help us better empathise with these patients, and this is exemplified by apps such as ‘A Walk Through Dementia’. This is a VR app that can be used via your phone, and places the user into the shoes of a person with dementia. The app really showcases the struggles of completing everyday tasks, such as going shopping or trying to make your way back home, and research based on healthcare professionals’ use of the application suggests that it helps to sensitise us to the experiences of residents with dementia. There is clearly clinical value in this, with an increased understanding of a person’s struggles with dementia allowing a more holistic approach to these people so that they can feel more comfortable in completing challenging scenarios. As such, this is a great case in highlighting the use of VR in making us more empathetic individuals.
Similar principles can be applied to the use of VR to support people with autism. The CDC reports that around 2% of people are autistic, with around 700,000 estimated in the UK, and around 100,000 of these people are still in UK education and need special educational needs (SEN) support. This is an excellent opportunity for the use of VR softwares such as ‘Floreo VR’ which uses this platform to teach key life skills such as social, communicative and behavioural skills to neurodiverse people of any age. These types of ‘lesson’ can be really beneficial to autistic people by essentially allowing a ‘practice’ session of a real-life scenario (eg going to the shops) before gradually transitioning to help people achieve these tasks in the real world, which can be an incredibly daunting scenario! This is a case where VR is being used as more of a therapeutic tool, and these principles can likely be expanded to multiple conditions.
VR is also strolling into the medical education world, and could be of particular use in surgical training. An example of this is ‘Surgical Theatre’, which takes a patient’s scans and turns them into a 3D model; this then allows students, patients and surgeons to move around this 3D replica and best select how to go about the procedure, identify any anatomical complications and even help the patient to better understand what will happen during their operation. The potential benefits to all parties involved is pretty obvious. So, with my medical student hat on, are there other potential use cases in medical education? In my humble opinion, VR could really revolutionise the way we prepare for OSCEs and simulation sessions. Most medical students right now probably practise cardiovascular examinations on their healthy housemates, but using VR could really enhance this learning. Software could be designed to produce a ‘real’ patient with signs like a bounding pulse, central cyanosis or even a murmur; additionally, it could provide tailored feedback standardised to real examination mark schemes. Medical simulation scenarios are also incredibly useful during medical school, taking us out of our textbooks and into the real world to see what we would do in the pressure cooker. Again, VR could be used to replicate this experience from the comfort of our own homes, throwing us into an A&E scenario where our patient is in anaphylactic shock or is suffering from an internal bleed. The point is this: the use of VR in medical education really needs a good student feedback system or even student-led softwares, to both identify and fill gaps in our current clinical teaching so that it truly is useful.
Final Thoughts?
Well that all sounds great, but are there any problems? Whilst it’s hard to predict how the markets will change over time, currently the Oculus Quest, Rift S and Rift systems account for over half of the VR headset users across the world (according to Statista), suggesting that Meta has really monopolised the market - some more competition in hardware development would likely accelerate the potential uses of VR, but for now we’re still in the early stages of its uptake. The good news (or maybe bad if you’re a competitor…) is that Apple has arrived to the party, announcing the Apple Vision Pro in 2023, although the current estimated price of that is around $3500 which makes the Meta Quest ($500) almost irresistible. Until cheaper prices hit the shelves, don’t expect a huge uptake of newer VR hardware.
Further to this, with the current financial ‘uncertainty’ of the NHS and medical school funding, don’t expect flashy VR to be widely available any time soon - it may be the case that we see a gradual transition from classroom-based teaching to a more rudimentary and much cheaper form of VR (eg Google Cardboard) and an eventual move to the more sophisticated systems (looking at you, Meta) in both clinical and educational settings. From a therapeutic perspective, there are seemingly multiple market entry points for VR use in the NHS - from screening for diseases virtually, assessing or diagnosing conditions and finally for treatment… whether the NHS will be open to any of these suggestions is of course a different matter. Expect to see VR hit private healthcare first (hopefully providing us with some more use cases, for example in psychiatric therapy) and then eventually come into the NHS remit. Realistically, more use cases for VR hardware and software will mean more interest and more money at the table, so keep your eyes peeled for a big disruption to healthcare coming your way soon…ish.
Author: George Nishimura, Content Creator MTF
Editor: Ramat Abdulkadir, National Technolgy Director MTF
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