STUDY ON THE PHYSIOLOGICALLY AND BIOCHEMICALLY DETECTED FATIGUE INDUCED BY THE VIRTUAL REALITY

Abstract

We are studying a novel concept of the on-line hospital system using a virtual environment called “Hyper Hospital”. The “Hyper Hospital” is a medical care system which is constructed in a distributed electronic information network using virtual reality (VR) as a human interface. In the present study, physiological and psychological responses of healthy young male subjects were measured by controlled experiments. Some physiological indices such as heart rate, blood pressure, and urinary catecholamine release showed statistically significant differences between results of control experiments using non-VR stimuli and results of VR loading experiments. However they were thought to be mainly from non VR origin. Subjective fatigue was complained by some sujects and they were thought to be indicating a direction of an improvement of our VR system in future. In conclusion, our VR system was proven to be safe when it is used for light medical purpose.