How Virtual Reality Will Change Physical Therapy Forever

This review will be about papers published in the field of rehabilitative gaming, particularly focusing on those published by Gary Ushaw. By implementing rehabilitation exercises into an interactive game, the patient no longer sees them as a chore and instead will engage for longer and complete them in a quicker time, which speeds up the healing process (Ushaw, Ziogas, Eyre, & Morgan, 2013). I personally believe there is serious potential in the future of rehabilitative gaming, which will be beneficial to both the patient in question because they take less time to complete the rehabilitation process, and doctors and the NHS because patients can use home equipment instead of coming onto a hospital etc.

For their study, “47 undergraduate students at a Midwest university” were gathered through an online sign up process in which no demographics were collected in the study and the participants had the motivation of receiving class credit for their participation (556). Out of the 47, 2 participants were excluded from the final result due to problems with the procedure, leaving a total of 45. These individuals took part in a virtual reality simulation designed to help people overcome fear of heights. Each participant wore a specially designed set of goggles that allowed for the wearer to have a 360 degree view of the virtual environment and was given a hand-held controller to control their movements throughout the environment. The environment consisted of

Transcript from our interview with Dr. Pretorius, Orthopaedic Surgeon: He says he is not aware of any virtual reality training for orthopaedics. The traditional training for arthroscopic knee surgery was either on cadavers or they would do arthroscopies on public patients (while they were registrar's) with severe osteoarthritis - which means they get a bit of practice on a living patient, without the chance of doing any damage. He says that he thinks training in virtual reality would be a useful tool, but will not be as accurate as/good experience as working on cadavers or live patients - giving you more exposure to real life complications and individual anatomy of patients - Dr Willem Pretorius, Orthopaedic Surgeon

Therefore training is not the only usage of VR in the military, but also in healthcare. Using the virtual environment to explore not only PTSD, but all sorts of phobias, specialists can help treat patients. By using a controlled environment, PTSD patients can re-enact scenarios and learn how to cope with their traumas. This kind of treatment works on people with phobias simultaneously. By putting them in the virtual environment, the patients can gradually learn how to overcome their phobias with the help of a

Medical Applications of virtual and augmented reality: Virtual reality is an interactive simulation that makes you feel like you are somewhere you are not. It is now starting to be used in the medical field. For patients that are in pain, virtual reality can be used to make it seem like they are in a different happier place. Studies show that it has the same effectiveness level as morphine, possibly even more effective. For therapists who help people with different fears, virtual reality can help conquer the fear. For example, a virtual reality for people suffering arachnophobia allows people to experience what it is like to have spiders surrounding them. Virtual reality can also be used for surgical training. Surgeons can practice surgery without the fear of hurting or injuring an actual patient. This is helpful because if they mess up, they do not have to deal with the consequences that come from surgical mistakes. Virtual reality is a very new and upcoming idea, and in the near future it has the potential to become much more common in a healthcare

I believe that my personal and professional growth and behavior as a physical therapist is of utmost importance. I base this firstly on my strong connection to those in society who are disadvantaged when it comes to physical therapy, and also on the movement system, movement being “the key to optimal living and quality of life for all people that extends beyond health to every person’s ability to participate in and contribute to society” (American Physical Therapy Association, 2013). This perspective, I believe, is aligned perfectly with the vision statement for the physical therapy profession – to transform society through optimization of movement to improve the human experience (APTA, 2013). After reviewing the vision statement, I strongly believe it will act as my guide by strengthening compassion, reinforcing advocacy, improving quality of service, and strengthening cohesion.

Physical therapists use techniques that help their patients with their ability to move, restore their function, and prevent possible disabilities. There are several different game consoles available for these therapists to use in their treatments. With motion sensors that are included in many different gaming consoles, patients can now actually get up and do physical activity with the game. In fact, there are newly developed devices that have been proven to help with physical therapy. The book Video Games (Compact Research: Current Issues) reveals that there is a treatment program called “Wii-hab” that they have named after the Nintendo’s Wii video gaming system. It claims “the Wii-hab program has helped patients regain the ability to move so they are able to wash their faces, brush their teeth, get in and out of chairs, and start a car” (Parks 56). As a result, interactive video games open several doors for patients because they prompt the brain and trigger senses that relate back to how muscles are supposed to

Once the technology had been developed to a point where it could actually be utilized, VR was often seen as more of a tool than a new method of entertainment. The technology was fine-tuned and then used in flight simulators during the 70s to train pilots before they got into a real plane. The technology then made its way to the entertainment industry during the video-game boom of the 80s. Since its inception, Virtual Reality technology has found a wide range of uses in very unpredictable ways. The military, the space program, medical students and even driving schools use virtual training environments that take place in a version of Virtual Reality.

There is the chance of one getting cybersickness which is triggered by the motion involved in using virtual therapy. However, there are positive aspects in using virtual reality such as if one is suffering from obesity, paralysis, or any other disorder or reason that interferes with one of leaving their own home that the therapist who are going to perform the virtual reality are able to perform on the patient anywhere in the world when given the right necessary tools. Being able to perform this therapy basically anywhere is a huge positive aspect because one does not have a specific reason in skipping the therapy because of no ride ect. Using this therapy is highly known to be able to get rid of the fear or decrease the amount of fear that follows along with the the core of the thing triggering fear.

authors showed that virtual reality (VR) is one of the best new technologies that can be applied

Imagine a soldier that looses a limb in battle, an athlete who breaks an bone or tears a muscle during practice or a game, a child born with a disability condition, or a police officer that has been shot or injured in the line of duty all have the same thing in common. Each of these different situations and many others activities require a Doctor of Physical Therapy in order to treat their complication. Being a Physical Therapists is a job that will always be needed; there will always be people that need help regaining their physical health. It is all about helping people ranging in all ages from the elderly, adults, teens, and children who have problems with their body, muscles and joints. People should follow the consequentialist view in any career field that they decide to pursue. Physical therapist need to have certain habits to succeed in the medical field. If they do not have these certain habits they will not be as successful as the therapist that do have these habits. Therefore, there are certain traits I believe a physical therapist needs to have, which is the ability to give encouragement, to be very knowledgeable, have a lot patience, and be personable in order to be successful in the job field.

In your life, have you ever thought about using virtual reality? Have you ever taken to time to actually look at and think about both sides of virtual reality? Well virtual reality, is good and many people doubt that because of all the cons. But there a lot of pros that defeat these cons. It won't only help you, but it can make you happier and proud. People like to believe in a lot of things, but not everyone sees both sides of everything, especially when it comes to virtual reality. Virtual reality, it develops people it guides people. It’s like being you and creating yourself in the form that you can feel best in. It can be used to do a lot of things but many people are blind to that and just see everything one sided. Virtual reality should be allowed because it’s helpful to struggling or disabled people, therefore virtual reality isn't a cancer to the world, it’s a solution.

A topic that interests me is the field of physical therapy. Ever since I have been playing soccer since of the age of 3, I have always had many different injuries. This has made me want to help people while learning such a unique field. I have had different ankle and knee injuries and having a good physical therapist really makes a big difference in rehab. This also impacted my desire to want to be a physical therapist because being in that environment; it was really fun being in such a good atmosphere while people are usually scared to go to see a doctor. Physical Therapy is a perfect topic I will research in regards to injury and prevention, which is essential part of a PTs job.

Pain is the most predominant symptom experience after an injury and dressing changes only add to the pain. A method is required to decrease the amount of pain during a dressing change to help promote wound healing and increase hand function (Guo, Deng, & Yang, 2014). Some of the treatments we use presently in the hospital to decrease pain, such as analgesics, can cause “respiratory depression, decrease blood pressure and other side effects” (Guo et al., 2014, p.116). Another treatment used is a “narcotic dressing” which can significantly increase the cost of treatment. This study looks at the use of a nonpharmacological way of decreasing pain during a dressing change by the use of virtual reality distraction. The purpose of this research study

These studies found that these alternative methods did help to improve strength and function of these patients, but none of the studies had significant data to definitively prove this. While the data from these studies are not significant, it does not mean that they are entirely unimportant. Most of the researchers from these studies sent out follow up questionnaires about the enjoyment of the rehabilitation styles. All of the studies that did these questionnaires found that the participants had much greater levels of enjoyment and motivation while completing their from of rehab. This shows that while these alternative methods of hemiplegia rehabilitation might not be entirely effective on their own, they can serve a purpose when combined with traditional physical therapy methods. Physical therapist can utilize video games like the Wii or virtual reality software for patients that do not respond to or do not have proper motivation for traditional rehabilitation methods. This can help the physical therapist tremendously so they will have a tool at their disposal to help increase the motivation of the harder to work with patients. While the studies were performed well, they did have a number of limitations that hindered the research. Many of the studies, all besides one, had less than 50 participants, which leaves very little room for participant or conductor error. These small sample sizes also allow for outliers to throw off the data tremendously, as compared to if the study had a larger sample size. Another limitation that most of these studies had was that there were often a greater number of males to females. While this may not seem detrimental to these studies, it does provide doubt about the accuracy because of the differences between males and females, which may have skewed the data in a