The different use cases for virtual reality technology continue to pile up. It now seems a few doctors are experimenting with this technology to bring relief to burn victims. Although one wouldn’t expect immersive video games to be of any help in this regard, the approach seemingly works surprisingly well as we speak.
Treating Burn Victims With VR
It has to be said, the new medical approach to treating burn patients is something few people would have expected. Using VR technology to offer immersive video games to these patients is pretty unusual, but the initial results appear to be rather promising. More specifically, one game, in particular, stands out. Known as Snow World, it uses VR goggle to immerse patients in a world of snow and ice. As such, patients can throw snowballs at different objects to take their mind off the medical procedures accordingly.
USA Medical Center’s Burn Unit explains this procedure as follows:
“This is a state-of-the-art virtual reality headset driven by an extremely powerful computer combining the latest Intel Coffee Lake CPU with dual GeForce GTX 1080(ti) graphics cards. This top of the line hardware lets us provide patients with complete immersion in artificial environments that promote a soothing, therapeutic milieu. These environments include experiences like walks along tropical beaches, hikes through quiet forests, SCUBA diving, journeys through outer space, as well as more active experiences like 3D painting programs and dodgeball tournaments.”
With so many different use cases for this technology, it is interesting to see medical experts take different approaches altogether. While it doesn’t help patients recover any quicker, it is always good to have a way to escape reality while enduring painful procedures. Once the brain is occupied by non-painful stimuli, the painful things happening to the user’s body are pushed to the background. It is an effective way of ‘tricking” the brain.
Whether or not we will see more efforts like these, remains to be seen. It is good to see convenient ways of making hospital visits less annoying and boring for all parties involved. While it is also a bit antisocial to use a VR headset, the patients have seemingly taken a liking to this concept rather quickly. That in itself is a positive development, although this concept is still in the early stages. An interesting use case for this technology, that much is rather evident.
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