Today's Practice: Changing the Business of Medicine National Edition Q1 2018 | Page 20

T E CHNOL OGY
Virtual Reality
In addition to management for stress disorders,
psychologists have also explored the application of virtu-
al reality in treating anxiety disorders. The treatment has
proved especially effective to help people address fears
like acrophobia, arachnophobia and claustrophobia.
Given that over 19 million people in the U.S. are
plagued by specific phobias, the effectiveness of virtual
reality could pave the way for a better alternative to the
use of medications.
Stroke Rehabilitation
Virtual reality has also shown to advance recovery
during physical therapy, as creating a virtual “physical”
world can allow patients to practice re-learning func-
tional tasks with increasing degrees of complexity, or
make monotonous exercise more interesting. Stroke
patients in particular have demonstrated marked
improvements in arm and hand movement after four
weeks of VR rehab as opposed to cohorts who under-
took traditional rehab therapy.
Ilya Druzhnikov
“Virtual reality has also shown to
advance recovery during physical
therapy, as creating a virtual
“physical” world can allow patients
to practice re-learning functional
tasks with increasing degrees of
complexity, or make monotonous
exercise more interesting.”
meet the author:
Wheelchair Training
For previously ambulatory patients suddenly without
the use of their legs, not only are they faced with the
hurdles of emotional acceptance, they also have the
physical challenges of learning to “drive” a wheelchair to
overcome. VR is being explored as a means to help ease
that transition. A team of designers at Fjord has come up
with a virtual, urban environment that is designed to
help first-time wheelchair users safely practice steering
and navigating obstacles before having to tackle those
new-found challenges in the real world.
These applications are just the tip of the iceberg when it
comes to ways in which virtual reality can revolutionize
the healthcare industry as we know it today. And as the
technology becomes more affordable and widely accessi-
ble, patients all over the world will have increasing access
to a broad spectrum of non-invasive, non-narcotic treat-
ment options.
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Ilya Druzhnikov
Co-founder
Exit Reality
Ilya Druzhnikov is the co-founder of Exit Reality, which develops,
deploys and manages VR infrastructure and services for
out-of-home distribution to meet the needs of consumers, retail
and the VR industry at large. A serial entrepreneur, he has
founded two successful companies which led their segments:
Panop in web personalization, which has been acquired, and
ConnectAndSell in sales acceleration, which is currently in its
growth phase. Between stints as a founder, Ilya is an early-stage
investor and advisor in numerous startups ranging from genetics
and bioinformatics to IoT and foodtech.
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