Abstract:

Virtual reality (VR) has become more popular in the medical field. The medical applications of VR range from medical training for students, surgery simulation, patient rehabilitation, and many other applications. This paper will focus on the virtual reality experience for patients who have rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a disease that affects the joints and causes swelling that can also be painful. The virtual reality application will be a patient journey, taking RA patients through their daily activities while simulating the progression of joint immobility due to advanced disease in the absence of proper treatment. The objective of the application is to increase self-empathy and self-efficacy in patients so that they take necessary actions to mitigate the progression of the disease. Self-efficacy is defined as one’s belief in their ability to complete a task or perform at a certain level. According to Bandura, there are four sources of self-efficacy: mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasions, and physiological and emotional states. In the literature, we have reviewed virtual reality experiments to increase empathy. These experiments have been deemed successful in increasing the empathy that medical students and medical professionals have for their patients. Authors have also considered an increase in one’s empathy for themselves. Virtual reality has also been successful in influencing the self-efficacy of users in certain situations. The success of these virtual reality scenarios indicates that VR will potentially have that same impact on RA patients. This application will illustrate to patients how difficult RA can make their lives when they do not take their doctors’ advice on what to do to assist with their disease. We utilized information from the literature to influence the design and experiences of the application for RA patients. By experiencing the difficulty that RA presents and how beneficial medicine and exercising can be, we hope to influence those in the early stages to take necessary precautions. When patients adhere to suggested treatment, their disease may less significantly impact their ability to complete their day-to-day activities later in life.

Keywords:

virtual reality, medical education, design, self-efficacy