What Is Augmented Reality?
Augmented reality is the compilation of reality with digital or technological advancements. It is a continuously growing field in the world of computer science. It amalgamates the real environment with digital knowledge. Through augmented reality, the objects or instances in the real world are enhanced through device-assisted technology. Augmented reality includes graphic enhancements, sound effects, touch feedback, text content, and many other effects. The user experience will be enhanced by augmented reality, which allows them to connect with real instances virtually. Augmented reality has developed solid solutions in industries related to entertainment, art, architecture, communication, and, more importantly, medicine.
What Is Medical Augmented Reality?
Augmented reality has made many advancements in the field of medical science. It helps to explain complex medical procedures in simpler forms to the patient and bystanders. It also helps in the imaging, diagnosis, and management or treatment of any medical conditions.
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Nursing: By the compilation of augmented reality with certain conventional systems, it will be helpful for the nurses to consume their time and build up a patient-nurse rapport. In addition, augmented reality has also made the patient record maintenance system more favorable.
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Pediatrics: In pediatrics, augmented reality-based tablets have been designed that make the child patient stay still for the treatment. It also decreases the chance of the usage of anesthetics.
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Helps the Disabled: Augmented reality has helped in developing smart spectacles for visually impaired individuals. It helps blind people or visually impaired patients to recognize known faces and move with ease.
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Dentistry: In dentistry, augmented reality helps in building a three-dimensional model and aids the dental surgeon in creating the crowns or caps precisely and more conveniently.
What Are the Augmented Reality Advancements in the Healthcare Industry?
Following are some of the augmented reality advancements in medical science:
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Wound Care Management: The conventional methods that evaluate the wound parameters are invasive, traumatic, and inaccurate. This causes pain and inconvenience to the patient. The use of augmented reality assisted in bringing a non-invasive method to assess the wound parameters. The device approximates the wound parameter and furnishes visual feedback on the status of wound healing. The accuracy of the device is high when compared to the traditional methods. It assists healthcare professionals in providing better health education to patients and managing wounds properly.
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Robotic-Assisted Surgery: Robotic surgery or robot-assisted surgery is more precise compared to traditional methods. By this method, to the surgical instrument, two additional arms are fixed- the camera arm and the mechanical arm. This helps the surgeon to get a magnified and three-dimensional view of the surgical site. It is possible to make surgical treatments minimally invasive using robotic-assisted surgery. As a result, the complications, trauma, bleeding, pain, and scars get reduced.
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Access Patient Records: The traditional methods for keeping patient records and accessing them are subject to human errors. Augmented reality helps in maintaining synchronization of the patient records. The traditional way is usually based on the use of multiple numbers and forms of papers and documents. This makes the healthcare professionals loaded with materials and confused with the details and information. Augmented reality helps in time consumption effectively and allows professionals to get access to the data with ease. The patient will usually be provided with a band or card containing the code, which on scanning provides the required information. Therefore, augmented reality helps improve the doctor and patient’s convenience.
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Augmented Reality in Physical Therapy: A combination of conventional methods and augmented reality is used to treat balance issues in older patients. Augmented reality introduces a new and fresh environment to the patients during physiotherapy sessions. It improves the results of physiotherapy by enhancing patient participation or engagement. In addition, it is an effective method that shrinks the treatment cost. The device helps the physiotherapist carry out the treatment and evaluate the outcome.
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Augmented Reality in Diagnosis: With the help of augmented reality technology, the doctor will be able to get a magnified and three-dimensional view of the diseased area, making the diagnosis process easy and more accurate. In addition, augmented reality enhances the visual imaging properties of MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) and CT (computed tomography) scans.
How Does Augmented Reality Help in Spreading Health Education?
Augmented reality helps effectively educate medical students, trainee health professionals, and patients. Augmented reality provides three-dimensional visual information of the contents to be learned and helps medical students learn by knowing and understanding. It is also helpful in training professionals about later additions or updates in the healthcare industry. It also helps doctors explain complicated treatment procedures to patients and bystanders. The advancement in augmented reality also helps check for the presence of some specific symptoms and aids doctors in correctly diagnosing diseases.
Can Smartphone Applications Help in Caring for Health?
Many smartphone applications focus on healthcare and are based on augmented reality. It either helps the patient or the doctor or both. Some applications use the smartphone camera to visualize certain defects and provide health education based on that particular disease or disorder. Some applications may act similarly to professional diagnostic tools to detect the presence of simple to malignant lesions. Some applications help professionals get updates about newly discovered medicines and the workings of health tools. The students may also get benefits if their phones have applications installed that provide three-dimensional images of the anatomical structures.
What Are the Demerits of Augmented Reality?
Augmented reality has many benefits in the healthcare industry. On the other hand, it has its demerits. Some of them are:
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Privacy: The data or information transmitted through augmented reality devices may not be encrypted. This makes it difficult for patients who have privacy concerns and in case of specific diseases.
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Technological Issues: Augmented reality is cent percent technology-based and shows issues like altered tracking, faulty measurements, etc.
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Surgical Issues: Surgeries performed using augmented reality techniques may also possess some of the risks that conventional methods do. In some cases, the patients may get infections or pain after the technique.
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Skills: Augmented reality requires skills from the side of medical companies or hospitals. Installing such devices may not meet the required needs if there is a lack of skills.
Conclusion
Augmented reality combines the virtual and real world. It has made many advancements in the medical field. The level of convenience and efficiency of the techniques used in medical science has shot up due to the application of augmented reality. Even though augmented reality is considered the future, it has its demerits too.
