These Healthcare VR Apps Are Changing Lives

One of the lesser-known but highly impactful rising sectors of the VR industry is healthcare VR.

Mental health and empathy training is a valuable asset that VR supplies handily through apps like We are Alfred in which med students role-play as sick and elderly people to gain a better understanding of their plight and world. In this app, students play as a septuagenarian afflicted with several illnesses.

We Are Alfred

Sometimes caring for the elderly can be quite a daunting task. Sometimes it can be difficult for healthcare professionals to understand what a patient is going through. Being sick and being old are entirely different experiences. Losing your agency can be difficult to understand if it’s not experienced directly.

Aging is a humbling experience. Medical students have the opportunity to empathize more directly with elderly patients with the VR simulation app We Are Alfred. In it, med students role-play as a septuagenarian.

The New York Times editorial VR

The New York Times is lauded for its print content. You may be surprised that the storied institution has some cutting edge content as well. NYT VR is The New York Times’ portal into mesmerizing and immersive editorials and video essays.

Floreo for autism therapy

Floreo is a therapeutic app for people on the autism spectrum. It teaches children with autism how to interact with others. It supplements social learning and therapy.

Mindmaze for neurorehabilitation

Mindmaze is an app that helps people with traumatic brain injuries recover. It supplements physical therapy and mental training with immersive nerve-awakening exercises.

Their VR systems enhance neurorehabilitation by tracking brain activity and encouraging activity in damaged regions. The technology has been especially useful for patients who have suffered a stroke.

Farmoo for chronic pain

Farmoo is a VR video game that’s being used to help lessen chronic pain. It’s specifically developed to help with pain distraction, which can greatly reduce the suffering associated with chronic pain.

Farmoo is also social, allowing patients suffering from pain to connect with others without leaving their room of care.

Medical Realities Technologies

It’s worth mentioning the surgical app company that started it all. Finer medical skills, like surgery, are being attempted via VR with astounding results.

Taking the next step to active treatment is an altogether different story, however, and is being attempted by the developers at IrisVision VR who are making apps that help older users with macular degeneration. Mindmaze VR is another such treatment app that uses VR to help trauma victims recover from their issues and regain stability.

Conclusion

Letting students understand and experience this life can help them to better understand the illnesses associated with aging and greater degeneration. By role-playing and caring for these digital representations the summer students can become better prepared for the real-world challenges associated with caring for the elderly and for all these apps, hiring virtual reality developers can change the world for the better.

The NYT VR app allows users to experience happening events from around the world from a first-person perspective which gives greater weight and impact to the stories. All of this helps to adjust people’s empathy and grant them a better understanding of the world as it truly is.

Then there is an app like Floreo which gives users with autism the ability to practice social interactions and learn to deal with real-world situations that they might encounter daily. The Floreo app seeks to make life easier and more productive for people of any age suffering from autism and is doing wonderful things through the power of VR.