Both you and your child are nervous and afraid and worry about what it will be like. In both of these situations, much of the fear is the concern about the unknown. A walk through the hospital or even through the operating room could alleviate some of this anxiety, but staffing constraints and access restrictions make casual walkthroughs unrealistic. Fortunately, virtual reality will offer the opportunity to visit such restricted environments and can provide the reassurance that such a personal exploration of the hospital can bring. Medical imaging technology is already quite advanced, but images are still two-dimensional.
CAT scans provide consecutive slices that can be assembled into mosaic presentations.
And, ultrasound, too, is only two-dimensional. The benefits of determining the location of tumors, the placement of surgical incisions, or practicing difficult surgical procedures ahead of time are of inestimable value. For example, if an ultrasound scanner was hooked up to a head-mounted display, the physician could see the image superimposed on the patient's body rather than having to consult a nearby screen. Already planning for radiation treatment benefits from virtual reality support. The goal of radiation treatment is to deliver a lot of radiation to a tumor while minimizing the radiation exposure to healthy tissue.