As the health domain continues to undergo significant change, the professional literature exhibits many ways in which the metaverse has the potential to modify health care delivery and enhance individual and community health status. The term metaverse has its provenance in the novel Snow Crash by the science fiction writer Neal Stephenson in 1992. According to a pair of articles published in the January and October 2023 issues of the Journal of Neuropsychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences by López and Hurley, the metaverse denotes a digital platform as a new and alternative environment manifested through digital content delivered via advanced technological devices employing artificial intelligence (AI).
This platform encompasses highly immersive and collaborative environments based on three-dimensional and real-time digital worlds in which multiple users can engage in activities (e.g., social, economic, and cultural). The authors indicate that the medical metaverse and its emerging technologies, such as AI, are transforming medical education, neuropsychiatric practice, and clinical neurosciences. AI provides earlier detection of many diseases and facilitates the clinical management of physical and mental conditions.
Viewed from another perspective, according to a manuscript published on August 24, 2023 in the journal Frontiers in Rehabilitation Sciences by Veras, metaverse technology is spurring a transformation in health care and has the potential to cause a disruptive shift in rehabilitation interventions. The technology surely will be a promising field offering new resources to improve clinical outcomes, compliance, sustainability, and patients’ interest in rehabilitation. For example, virtual reality (VR) has been used in several areas of physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy to improve upper limb function in stroke survivors, hand therapy, pain management, rehabilitation from COVID-19, lower back pain, balance treatment, cognition, communication, and acquired brain injury rehabilitation. Additionally, augmented reality (AR) is used in combination with conventional therapy for the treatment of balance and fall prevention in older adults; lower and upper limb functionality in stroke; phantom pain syndrome; and treatment for gait freezing in those with Parkinson’s disease. Nonetheless, an important caveat is that despite the growing interest in technologies for rehabilitation, various barriers to using digital services may continue to perpetuate a digital divide.
Also, as Hulsen, notes in a paper published on December 29, 2023 in the periodical Advances in Laboratory Medicine, in medicine and health care, the metaverse could be used in several ways: (1) virtual medical consultations; (2) medical education and training; (3) patient education; (4) medical research; (5) drug development; (6) therapy and support; and (7) laboratory medicine. The metaverse has the potential to enable more personalized, efficient, and accessible health care, improving patient outcomes and reducing health care costs. It is essential to realize, however, that the implementation of the metaverse in medicine and health care will require careful consideration of ethical and privacy concerns, as well as social, technical, and regulatory challenges.