How virtual reality could soon help stroke victims recover - CNET

The investment in MindMaze, led by multinational conglomerate Hinduja Group, underscores just how VR could shake up medicine. In fact, Hinduja's nine-figure bet makes MindMaze, a 55-person company, among the top three best funded virtual reality startups in the world, according to PitchBook, a venture capital research firm.

"If there's a short list of areas where virtual reality will be really helpful or usable, health care is on that list," says Brian Blau, vice president of research at information technology research firm Gartner.

For Blau, who's been studying virtual reality since the 1990s, the potential impact on health care makes sense. VR works by tricking the brain into believing that what it's seeing is three-dimensional and, often, lifelike. And more than most other professions or markets, health care demands realism.

"There's so much that needs to be immersive," says Blau.

Since the 1990s, virtual reality has been used to help patients suffering from phobias overcome their fears. One early study showed how VR was a useful tool to help overcome fears of spiders.

Now, the increasingly powerful displays in VR goggles are expanding the number of use cases to things like helping emergency room doctors prepare for situations that are impossible, dangerous or just costly to replicate in real life.

For example, instead of using actual cadavers, medical students can "work through mock surgeries" in VR, according to PitchBook, whose 2015 report concluded that "the use of VR to provide zero-risk environments to conduct training can be invaluable."

To be sure, health care will still play a smaller role with VR compared with gaming or entertainment, according to Gartner. Of 121 venture capital investments in virtual reality startups in 2014 and 2015, per Pitchbook, only 8 percent involved those in health care.