Some people who think about trying out virtual reality worry that is will make them sick or even cause some sort of vertigo. I did some research on the subject to give you the best answer.
Virtual reality has not been proven to cause vertigo. In fact, some scientists are even saying that virtual reality might be able to cure and treat vertigo. However, sometimes virtual reality can cause motion sickness which is related to vertigo.
Continue reading to learn more about what the future holds for virtual reality and treating vertigo.
How Virtual Reality Can Help With Vertigo
What is Vertigo?
Vertigo is interesting because we don’t fully know what it is or what causes it. We don’t have a direct link or cure yet.
Vertigo is often described as an internal and/or external spinning sensation. An example of this is having a consistent feeling of spinning in circles.
Vertigo is also linked to motion sickness and can also come as part of dehydration. There are many different symptoms of vertigo, but everyone who has experienced it before will testify that it is terrible.
My aunt had vertigo when I visited her a few months ago. It literally made her lay on a couch for hours on end. It is brutal and can cause people to feel motion sick for days. Many of those who happen to get vertigo can’t even leave their house due to the pain.
Basically, imagine being stuck on a couch feeling a spinning-like sensation for extended periods of time.
We do know that vertigo is somehow linked to environments.
For some people, certain environments trigger a painful sensation. Other people start to feel the symptoms of vertigo from other types of environments and situations. This is where virtual reality might be able to help.
The idea is that maybe through the creation of virtual environments we can stop the effects of vertigo and prevent them from happening in the future.
How Virtual Reality Might Cure and Diagnose Vertigo
According to a team of Cardiff University psychologists, virtual reality might be able to diagnose and treat vertigo. This can be huge in the medical realm because we don’t really fully understand what vertigo is, let alone how to deal with it. Finding a way to put a stop to this painful sensation would be huge for many people.
There isn’t much out there in terms of what the cause of vertigo actually is, and there aren’t many therapies out there that can effectively make it go away.
The whole goal the university’s VR project would be to:
- Understand what the causes of vertigo are
- Understand what steps to take to stop it
Experts have found that vertigo symptoms often have triggers from environments. Some specific environments can cause a painful reaction for certain people, while a totally different environment can inflict the same results in others.
Using virtual reality for understanding vertigo
With the help of virtual environments, the data can be better controlled. That control will help scientists test for what causes vertigo and what it looks like. Eventually, they will learn the entire story of vertigo and where it comes from.
The idea is to develop virtual environments to help with this diagnosis. As mentioned before, some environments just trigger vertigo in some people. So, scientists are thinking that by developing some virtual environments we may to able to counteract the pain someone is feeling from vertigo.
Virtual Reality as the cure to vertigo
The thought is that maybe we can reverse the effects through new, virtual environments. Once that process is figured out, the opportunities are endless in terms of learning about and preventing vertigo.
What makes virtual reality so amazing is that not only can any type of environment and situation be created, but they can be experienced to the extent that they seem real to the one in the virtual headset.
Eventually, these environments can act as a treatment to vertigo if possible. We shall see.
This is why scientists have hope about this new technology. If environments can be created and experienced, then they just might be able to be the most needed game-changer in the fight against vertigo.
As mentioned before, this is still a new idea. Scientists are still going over the theory. As virtual reality evolves even more over the next couple of years, we might see this theory become a reality.
Virtual Reality, Vertigo, and Motion Sickness
Many people mix up the terms vertigo and having motion sickness, associating both to virtual reality.
Although motion sickness is a common feeling when one is affected by vertigo, the two are not directly linked. For example, a person can experience motion sickness and not have vertigo. However, a person with vertigo almost always experiences some form of motion sickness.
This is why many people think that virtual reality can cause vertigo; virtual reality commonly makes people experience motion sickness.
In my personal experience, I have never gotten motion sick with virtual reality. As a kid, I was never the one to get sick on rides at the theme park or even while boating, so I must have dodged a bullet there.
However, my wife is the type who gets motion sickness relatively easily, so at time virtual reality can be a bit painful to her. Luckily, it isn’t every time that she puts on a headset that makes her feel motion sick. It is only in certain games that the sensation gets triggered. She could play Beat Saber all day long and feel fine, but as soon as she goes into Google Earth VR it is only a matter of seconds before she takes off the headset.
Although my wife’s motion sickness is common when she plays virtual reality, this is not linked to vertigo. The feeling is usually just an internally sick and dizzy feeling, and it goes away within minutes after getting out of the virtual environment.
Why virtual reality causes motion sickness
Motion sickness is a result of your brain getting information from your eyes that conflicts with the information from your inner ear.
The inner ear detects physical motion, meaning acceleration and deceleration. Virtual reality at this point cannot trick your inner ear into thinking that you are moving, but it can trick your eyes and ears very well.
Long story short, in VR you see and hear yourself moving, but you cannot feel it physically which results in motion sickness.
Why Vertigo causes motion sickness
Vertigo is a much more serious and painful experience. It can force people to lay on a couch for hours and at times even days due to the pain.
This pain comes from a lot of different things, but vertigo simply messes with your vision so that it looks like you are spinning when in reality you are not moving at all. That disconnection results in motion sickness.