Virtual reality for medical applications

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is only a decade old, but medicine is beginning to see the potential for this technology to revolutionize the practice of medicine. On the other hand, robotics and automation have been used in science and industry for over three decades, yet there are precious few applications within the medical field. However, the introduction of laparoscopic surgery, which requires operating inside a patient while observing a video monitor (or a virtual representation of the patient organs), will rapidly and dramatically increase the demand for VR, robotics and telepresence manipulation. Since these technologies have as their basis the use of information to create 3D images, to process the data and distribute this information through networks, there is a commonality among them which ties them all together into an integrated whole. The important concept is the fact that they are electronically mediated, and as such are the centerpiece for the total revolution of medicine.