Most of the minimal research out there suggests that Virtual Reality can be a beneficial tool to help with many aspects in the health world (9,11,3,8,7). Virtual Reality though, is a broad term for many types of systems. The research reviewed in this analysis was inconsistent on the types of Virtual Reality used.
Some of the studies, such as Hoffman et al. (2011), Plante et al. (2003), and Demeter et al. (2014) used a head mounted device to immerse the subject into the virtual world (6,10,5). Hoffman et al. (2011) used a helmet to block the subjects’ view of the hospital room and created images through lenses positioned near the subject’s eyes. These helmets also had noise canceling earphones to block the hospital noises with sounds from the virtual world (6). Plante et al. (2003) also used a head mounted device to wear while playing Trek Extreme Mountain Biking (10). Demeter et al. used a system called ‘EyeToy’ where objects are displayed on a standard TV monitor, while ‘Eye-Toy’ relays real-time images of the user, and detects the participant’s movement (5).
Bisson et al. (2007) used a system where the subjects wore gloves and stood in front of a monochrome wall. A video camera captured the image of the subject that was then sent to a computer. Color subtraction software was used to remove the background from the video image and then the subject’s image was combined with a virtual environment. The subject viewed him/herself in the virtual world on a television monitor and interacted in real-time with virtual objects that appeared in the virtual world (1). Dahlquist et al. (2009) and Sviestrup et al. (2003) used this technique as well