Virtual reality to improve nursing education in Finland

VR glasses enable experiencing other realities as VR technology offers virtually unlimited opportunities to explore the virtual world – from space to the human body. VR glasses are used for learning and development purposes as well as for gaming and entertainment. At Laurea University of Applied Sciences in Finland, VR glasses have been used in teaching and project work since 2019, and they’ve have been applied in a variety of ways to nursing teaching in particular.

“It is great to be involved in the utilisation of such new technology, as this opens up enormous opportunities,” says Pirjo Huikko, Senior Lecturer in Nursing at Laurea.

According to Huikko, so far, internal medicine teaching has made most use of virtual reality, with the help of the Share Care Pro application. The students have been able to examine, among other things, the anatomy and physiology of the lungs. They have examined the lungs both of an asthma patient and a patient with the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

“The application enables its adjustment, for example, for the different severity levels of asthma, with the patient being administered inhalable medicine, whereby the students can see how the medicine works and how the asthma attack is being relieved,” Huikko says by way of illustration.

The student can walk with VR glasses into the various structures of the heart and see the clogged coronary arteries.

In connection with cardiac diseases, the students have been able to examine the coronary arteries of a person with coronary artery disease.

“The student can walk with VR glasses into the various structures of the heart and see the clogged coronary arteries. Then, wearing the glasses, he or she can perform a treatment operation known as balloon angioplasty,” says Huikko.

“The Share Care Pro application is a huge asset for students studying nursing.”

360 videos for VR glasses

In the field of mental health and health care, Laurea has produced various 360 videos for use with VR glasses VR glasses.

“On the mental health side, we have made, for example, a video on the experience of schizophrenia, which simulates the sound and visual hallucinations that a person with schizophrenia might experience,” says Pia Lahtinen, Senior Lecturer in Nursing at Laurea.

“On the health care side, VR glasses and 360 videos enable students to ostensibly access, for example, a public health nurse’s office and follow a child’s health examination at a child health clinic.”

Pia Lahtinen hopes that in the future, more 360 videos of situations in which students may not be able to participate during their studies could be included in teaching. VR glasses enable the user to experience different situations in a safe manner.

“There is a constant stream of news from the world indicating how, especially during the coronavirus outbreak, VR glasses have made amazing things possible.”

“The corona pandemic is also likely to accelerate the development of virtual reality and the entry of new applications into the market.”

Although the possibilities for VR glasses are almost unlimited, their implementation is not yet at the same level.

“Various actors have manufactured a large number of VR glasses for their personal use only, which means that, for the time being, they are only available to a limited extent. Only few applications have been commercialised,” says Pirjo Hulkko, displeased with the situation.