Virtual Reality in the Healthcare Sector of Today - Gaining Allies or Making Adversaries through Immersive Virtual Environments and Technical Decisions
Student thesis: Master Thesis and HD Thesis
- Minh Tam Nguyen
- Rasmus Bjerborg
- Lucas Oscar Grosso Pedersen
4. term, Techno-Anthropology, Master (Master Programme)
Abstract
This Thesis explores Virtual Reality (VR) in a healthcare setting, Three sites are used in a case
study to ascertain the consequence of introducing VR and Head Mounted Displays into the
Psychological clinic Cool Kids and in two departments at Rigshospitalet The Pediatric Pain
Knowledge Center and the Youth Medical Knowledge Center. Each site has different goals with
using VR in their field. Cool Kids want to use VR to treat children who are suffering from phobia of
dogs, by gradually exposing them to dogs in a controlled Virtual Environment (VE). The Pediatric
Pain Knowledge Center wants to use VR to decrease or eliminate pain during painful procedures
involving needles. The Youth Medical Knowledge Center wants to help youths who are isolated
because of their decreased immune systems, to have experiences outside of the hospital through
VR, despite their isolation. The sites are bound together through their shared Interest in VR and
their connection to a VR application developer called Khora, who have developed the applications
which the three fields use. To study the phenomena of VR in these varied locations, we used the
anthropological methods of Participant Observation, as well as Interviews to gain an understanding
of our field and the actors inhabiting it. By using concepts from Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and
especially: A Key to Success In Innovation by Madeleine Akrich et al. (2002), we seek to describe
the socio-technical environment of our three case studies. We also use Mel Slater & Sylvia
Wilbur’s (1997) developed framework on immersive VEs, and utility of presence. While relying on
the concepts from Slater and Wilbur (Slater & Wilbur,1997:8) we found that the current software
application used at Cool Kids is impossible to use for psychotherapy. The argument is that the
software application made for treatment of cynophobia, does not have an immersive VE. The
subjects experiencing the VR, can therefore not transfer knowledge from the VE to the real world.
Additionally with Akrich et al. we develop an analysis of associations in which the actors who have
the network of allies, and collectively negotiate VR are the ones who stand with the strongest
result. Implementing VR HMD’s in the healthcare sector also means that technical decisions based
on home usage become problematic. But VR also have the ability to establish allies in the Pediatric
Pain Knowledge Center and as an interessement device manages to seduce doctors, nurses and
children using the device because of its ability to disassociate pain within the network.
Language | English |
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Publication date | 1 Jun 2018 |
Number of pages | 108 |