Virtual Reality and Medicine

1. Virtual Reality and Medicine Alyssa Hyem November 2, 2000 MIS 340-402 Dr. Denise Nitterhouse

2. Virtual Reality • Is computer-generated environment with and within which people can interact. • From text-oriented on-line forums and multiplayer games to complex simulations that combine audio; video, animation, or three-dimensional graphics; and scent.

3. Head piece Head tracker Data glove or wand Graphics engine Work station Back-up computer Virtual Reality Hardware

4. Virtual Reality • Virtual reality is an emerging technology that is forever changing the way medicine is done, from the surgeon to the psychologist virtual reality has formed a new way of healthcare.

5. Virtual Reality in Surgery • Virtual reality has become the new way to teach surgeons new procedures as well as finessing old ones.

6. Positives to VR in surgical training • Can determine level of competence before operating on a patient • Trainee can return to the same procedure several times • Can duplicate the operative field and thereby enhance training • Reduce the need for expensive animal training models

7. Negatives to VR in surgical training • Having a machine judge competence and not a mentor may cause problems • New technology means new education • High cost of hardware and software development

8. Virtual Reality Patches Brain Aneurysms • Doctors patch aneurysms by negotiating catheters to the site of an aneurysm and injecting a swirl of soft platinum wire into the bubble-like protrusion at the weak spot of the artery

9. Virtual Reality Patches Brain Aneurysms • This is made difficult by the unique turbulence and pulsating flow of blood in the arteries, which feeds blood to the brain

10. Virtual Reality Patches Brain Aneurysms • UCLA computer scientists have developed a computer simulation system that can create highly accurate simulation and images of blood flow and correctly map its dynamics • This system is used to conduct a virtual reality tour of the inside of the aneurysm to be treated

11. Virtual Reality Patches Brain Aneurysms • A virtual reality based system enables radiologists and neurosurgeons to better plan as well as determine when it is appropriate to perform this endovascular procedure as opposed to neurosurgery

12. Virtual Reality and Psychology • Virtual Reality has become the technology that is effective for assessing cognitive abilities and for rehabilitating people with cognitive impairments

13. Benefits of VR in Psychology • Flexibility and control in creating a useful test scenario • Takes distraction to a new level • Enables patients to become more verbal and animated because they can see and almost feel an environment • Eliminates a degree of bias, or lack of uniformity

14. Detriments of VR in Psychology • Can cause simulation sickness, or motion sickness • Expensive to create a virtual-reality environment • Chronic suffering patients are very tricky to treat

15. Virtual Reality Helping Veterans • The Georgia Institute of Technology’s College of Computing, found that Vietnam War veterans suffering form chronic posttraumatic stress disorder could be helped

16. Virtual Reality Helping Veterans • To help veterans therapists try to get the patient to tell his story over and over again, in a attempt to reprocess the memory of an event. Virtual reality brings out both verbal and animated communication where most patients have difficulty talking.

17. Virtual Reality Helping Veterans • As a result of virtual reality more and more veterans are upgrading their conditions from severe to moderate

18. Virtual Reality and Medicine • Technology is changing everyday so to keep up with the many advances in virtual reality and medicine here is a good web site. VR and Medicine

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