Virtual Reality Aided Therapy towards Health 4.0: A Two-Decade Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

Health 4.0 aligns with Industry 4.0 and encourages the application of the latest technologies to healthcare. Virtual reality (VR) is a potentially significant component of the Health 4.0 vision. Though VR in health care is a popular topic, there is little knowledge of VR-aided therapy from a macro perspective. Therefore, this paper was aimed to explore the research of VR in aiding therapy, thus providing a potential guideline for futures application of therapeutic VR in healthcare towards Health 4.0. A mixed research method was adopted for this research, which comprised the use of a bibliometric analysis (a quantitative method) to conduct a macro overview of VR-aided therapy, the identification of significant research structures and topics, and a qualitative review of the literature to reveal deeper insights. Four major research areas of VR-aided therapy were identified and investigated, i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and fear related disorder (A&F), diseases of the nervous system (DNS), and pain management, including related medical conditions, therapies, methods, and outcomes. This study is the first to use VOSviewer, a commonly used software tool for constructing and visualizing bibliometric networks and developed by Center for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands, to conduct bibliometric analyses on VR-aided therapy from the perspective of Web of Science core collection (WoSc), which objectively and visually shows research structures and topics, therefore offering instructive insights for health care stakeholders (particularly researchers and service providers) such as including integrating more innovative therapies, emphasizing psychological benefits, using game elements, and introducing design research. The results of this paper facilitate with achieving the vision of Health 4.0 and illustrating a two-decade (2000 to year 2020) map of pre-life of the Health Metaverse.

A Bibliometric Analysis of Virtual Reality-Aided Vision Therapy

“…Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection provides comprehensive results and is a commonly used database in health domains [8]. The flowchart can be seen in Figure 1.…”

“…Currently, only a few bibliometric studies have investigated the impacts of VR-aided therapy. For example, for general health science, Liu et al [8], but VT was not included. This study aims to analyze the role of VR in VT by using a bibliometric analysis to understand the current state-ofthe-art in the field.…”

Feasibility of Using the Metaverse as Telecardiology Platform: Remote Follow-up of a Patient With Vasospastic Angina

“…(1) (2) Being an interactive virtual environment using augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) and interacting via digital avatars, the metaverse can be also imagined as a potential telemedicine platform. (3) (4) Since its use for medical purposes has not been investigated yet, we sought to evaluate the feasibility of performing a telecardiology consultation combining the use of the metaverse with telemedical devices. (5) A digital consultation room combining AR/VR was created inside the Aimedis Avalon metaverse platform (GDPR compliant, CE class I medical device).…”

Rapid Synthesis of the Literature on the Evolution of Gamification in Distal Radial Fracture Rehabilitation

“…A blended examination strategy was embraced for this exploration, utilizing a bibliometric investigation where a quantitative technique led to an overview outline of VR-assisted treatment, along with a literature review putting an impact on the qualitative insights of the application. The data cost is added to design further healthcare administrations and associations between healthcare counterparts utilizing elements of the game and presenting new exploration programs [ 14 ]. Again, a bibliometric analysis of 8,399 scientifically proven studies on the application of AR and VR supported the emerging versatility of AR and VR in medicine.…”