This paper presents definitions, categories, and scopes of health sciences as well as information and communication technologies, specifically highlighting augmented (AR) and virtual reality (VR) and how the latter be seen as a resource in the categories of health sciences.
1.1 Health Sciences
For decades, the healthcare sector has been facing increasingly complex scenarios related to various factors such as the disruption of ecosystems, the emergence of new diseases, and the increased life expectancy of the world's population (Pérez-Diaz and Abellan-Garcia, 2016).
In recent years, management of the health needs to adopt an interdisciplinary, systemic, and multisector. At the international level, there has been a consensus to refer to this new way of facing the challenges posed by global health promotion as "One Health" from an operational standpoint. This concept is consider a strategy for designing and implementing practices, programs, policies, legislation, and research aimed at achieving better public health outcomes (Vicente et al., 2021). It is important to continue strengthening health systems to provide more effective, efficient, and sustainable healthcare. This requires joint efforts from all social, political, and economic actors for the welfare of society to accurate treat various diseases (Beaman et al., 2018). Health centers cover a wide range of areas focused on health, disease, and treatment, and are a multidisciplinary approach that places disease in different categories:
(i) Primary prevention (health promotion), (ii) secondary prevention (diagnosis and treatment), and (iii) tertiary prevention (rehabilitation) (Louria et al., 1976).
Technology plays a relevant role due to its advances and the ease of data management, allowing for different tasks that aid in decision-making, statistical analysis, systems for simulations and studies of patterns of different diseases, and information systems for patients that enable detailed records of their evolution, location, and improvement. Technological progress has enabled benefits in different areas of the health sector, such as rehabilitation, diagnosis, treatment, and improved communication, providing solutions that adapt to the needs of the population (Verdin, 2020).
1.2 ICT
Information and communication technologies (ICT) have shown a high impact on various productive sectors, along with the technological evolution of software and hardware that increasingly enable more optimal solutions to the different problems in our society, benefiting multiple sectors (Giannopoulos and Munro, 2019).
ICT are widely available to society, facilitating the creation, distribution, and manipulation of information. They are oriented toward development, where everyone can create, consult, use, and share information and knowledge so that society can fully utilize the potential of ICT to promote sustainable development and improve quality of life. This is called the information society, where data is the raw material that, when processed, becomes information – an indispensable input for this new society. The objective of this society is for people to interconnect by technological innovations, allowing for the exchange of information flowing instantaneously to and from any part of the world. This environment has emerged thanks to ICTs, as they facilitate the production and distribution of information and drive globalization (Giannopoulos & Munro, 2019).
ICT allow for the optimization of processes, advances in different areas, the emergence of new professions, as well as the adaptation of existing ones. The social dimension of ICT can see in terms of their strength and influence in different areas, as well as the emergence of new social structures that result from the constant two-way interaction between technology and society. This has led to the emergence of new technologies, such as augmented reality and virtual reality, among others (Palvia et al., 2021).
1.3 AR
AR seeks to enhance reality by integrating physical objects with digital or intangible objects allowing us to add layers of visual information about the world around us. This helps us generate experiences that provide relevant knowledge about our environment while receiving this information in real-time (Craig, 2013a).
This technology can used in: (i) Images: thanks to new image classification techniques, augmented reality is much more natural, allowing any element of the environment to be used, such as a company logo, a business card, a restaurant menu, or a tourist map of a city. (ii) Spaces: Generating three-dimensional maps where augmented reality information can be very useful marking routes or guides inside a museum, identifying the different components of an engine or solving exam questions. (iii) Places: Using the geographic coordinates of a specific place is possible to view augmented reality content about that place or point of interest. Thanks to the GPS, sensors and the digital compasses of mobile devices, and using superimpose different visual elements, and play with perspective, distances, and heights and use augmented reality (tourism, culture, large-scale works, and find rental flats at a glance). These are just some of the sectors where this technology can apply (Craig, 2013b).
1.4 VR
VR aims to create a simulated environment. This will place users in a different experience from traditional interfaces. It can place users in a different experience from traditional interfaces. Here, users are immersed in the virtual environment and will be able to interact in three-dimensional worlds. Through the stimulation of the senses, the more senses involved in the simulation, the greater the immersive intensity in the virtual environment (Sherman & Craig, 2019).
VR has three categories that describe the level of realism and interaction with the user. The more immersive the VR, the more complex it is for the user to differentiate the real from the virtual world. The categories are as follows:
- Non-immersive reality: The user differentiates the virtual world from the real world, involves the senses and perceptions of the world in a lesser way. The user can see and hear things outside the virtual world.
- Immersive reality: Creation of 3D environments, supported by accessories such as sound headphones, controls, among others, to give a greater sensation of immersion in the virtual world. Relies on the senses, such as: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
- Semi-immersive reality: A combination of immersive and non-immersive virtual reality, using virtual and physical elements.
A virtual reality system must be capable of digitally generating a three-dimensional environment in which the users feel present and in which they can interact intuitively and in real time with the objects found within it. Virtual objects must possess properties such as friction and gravity and maintain a position and orientation in the virtual environment independently from the users’ point of view. Users must be free to move and act within the synthetic environment in a natural way, such that the sensation of presence will increase the sensory channels that are stimulated. Realism of a virtual environment is determined by: (i) Resolution and fidelity of the image, (ii) Reproduction of the properties of objects and virtual settings, (iii) Objects reacting in the same way as they would in the real world when subjected to any type of manipulation, (iv) User moving and acting in the virtual environment in an intuitive way and in “real time”, (v) User perceiving either the firmness or elasticity of virtual objects, as well as the rest of the tactile and proprioceptive indicators (Kuai & Hao, 2020).
1.5 VR as a Resource for Health
One of the fields where VR is applied is medicine. These advances have meant a transcendental improvement in the quality of life of patients and in the quality of medicine in general, a guarantee when it comes to making a more accurate diagnosis.
Medical applications have led to scientific and technological innovation in different areas such as medical education, surgery, rehabilitative medicine, psychiatry, and psychology, which makes it an excellent tool to address patient problems, relieve pain, dispel fear, and offer more empathy and care (Dennis & Patterson, 2020).
Currently, VR is one of the areas where invaluable help to surgeons performing surgical interventions, because virtual reality makes it possible to perform certain surgical operations before carrying them out, thus minimizing the risks that may occur at the time of the actual intervention. The success stories of VR medical applications worldwide are increasing daily (Bernardo, 2017). In addition to a helmet, VR is support by haptic devices, which are decisive when performing tasks that require a high degree of training, such as surgical interventions (Fang et al., 2019). VR technologies have great potential, especially for medicine.
1.6 Expected Differences against Other Scientific Reviews Found
- One of the reviews found by Ladino-Cañas and Caicedo-Eraso (2021) regarding the use of technology in health sciences, only generally addresses the specific application of serious video game technology without any type of emphasis on immersive disruptive technologies, such as AR or VR.
- None of the reviews found describe the categories of primary prevention (health promotion), secondary prevention (diagnosis and treatment) and tertiary prevention (rehabilitation).
1.7 Objective of the Review
The objective of this article is to carry out a narrative systematic review of the use of VR in health sciences focused on answering the research question, prioritizing work in the areas previously described, but emphasizing immersive VR applied to the promotion and prevention, diagnosis and treatment, and rehabilitation, to specify concepts and disseminate information.