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Virtual Reality – Why it’s the Future of Healthcare
July 15, 2016
Will 2016 be a year of virtual reality? This question has been discussed over the last six months in the major media outlets such as Fortune Magazine, BBC, Bloomberg, Venture Beat, and The Guardian. With Oculus Rift coming into retail, new generations of headsets, and growing amount of high-quality content, the technology is becoming a reality—opening a lot of new business opportunities. While the video games industry is the absolute market leader, other industries are beginning to incorporate augmented and virtual reality technologies into their systems.
No wonder venture capitalists and other investors have moved from skeptical spectator seats to active participants. They injected $658 million in virtual reality startups in 2015 and $1.1 billion in just the first three months of 2016. Interestingly, more than half of the investments has been made in early stage companies, with seed and angel funding accounting for 59% of all the money.
According to the latest study conducted by Goldman Sachs, the industry growth will continue and, in ten years, virtual and augmented reality will yield $80 billion in revenues ($23 billion in the bear-case and $182 billion in the bull-case, respectively).
Serious games
One industry that has greatly benefited from the technological innovations is healthcare. According to the same study, it will be the number two largest market for augmented and virtual reality. This technology has been already employed for diagnostics and the planning of treatments, training of future surgeons and dentists, treatment of severe conditions such as phobias, PTSD, autism, depression, addictions, and rehabilitation after life-threatening diseases.
- Doctors often deal with unmotivated and depressed patients. Keeping them engaged through various games can make a difference in the success of the treatment. Rapael Smart Glove is a wearable biofeedback device for stroke rehabilitation. Its sensor data is transmitted via Bluetooth from the patient’s hand, and the software creates 3D training games adjusting the difficulty level according to the participant’s performance. Caregivers can design custom rehabilitation programs by combining the games.
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By Scott Kim