Virtual Reality in Preanesthetic Care: A Case Series on Feasibility and Usability.

The European Union (EU) Parliament defines metaverses as “.” The metaverse has garnered significant attention from the research community lately, and a substantial amount of work has already been done on its ideas, design, and applications in several domains. In the last 2 years, there have been numerous attempts to develop new syllogisms with the goal of more clearly illustrating how this communication technology might be used. What emerged from this preliminary evidence was that moving from a to a or perspective, the health care sector will be one of the main domains exploiting this kind of technology. The metaverse is a “federation” of multiple technologies (artificial intelligence [AI], tangible and multimodal interfaces, blockchain, and Internet of Things) shared by multiusers simultaneously to connect the 3D environments to cyber-physical devices and their data, thus enabling seamless interaction between the “virtual” and “real” world (also called, ) managed by AI algorithms. The two-way connection between the virtual and real worlds is provided by the digital twins: digital copies of real-world objects, systems, or processes that are in sync with the physical world. This implies that experiences in the virtual world might influence physical actions and vice versa. Furthermore, any changes made to the real world are mirrored in their virtual counterparts, enabling reciprocal feedback. For example, engaging with an avatar in the virtual world can cause haptic feedback to occur in the real world. The utilization of the metaverse in clinical medicine will be a novel approach to methods of treatment, providing some benefits concerning previous approaches (such as telemedicine or traditional individual virtual reality (VR) sessions). For instance, while telemedicine provides routine treatment with convenience and accessibility, the metaverse transforms how patients and doctors engage with medical information. Depending on the clinical setting, telemedicine is a good option for routine care, while metaverse tools are best suited for complex simulations and immersive social training. Another advantage is the ability to construct controlled, multiuser, and customized therapeutic environments that can be adapted to the unique requirements and conditions of each patient. Using AI tools, the metaverse also could enable the tailoring of therapeutic situations and surroundings to each patient’s unique requirements, preferences, and treatment objectives. In mental health care, for instance, where the subjective nature of diseases requires individualized approaches for best results, this customization is essential. For instance, in the neurorehabilitation domain, the advent of the metaverse will allow to start a new era of treatments moving from standard individual therapy to multiusers therapeutic sessions controlled in a shared virtual world. In the psychiatric domain, the employment of this “.” However, before translating this “federation” of multiple technologies into the medical realm, we need to handle legal matters using a risk-adjusted strategy, keeping in mind that there can be exceptions to accommodate medical concerns (such as privacy, data protection, financial flexibility, decentralization, security, and intellectual property rights) as this technology is still in its infancy.