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How Virtual Practice Makes Perfect

posted in: EdTech, Tech Trends, VR Tech

 

The Internet democratized knowledge, but immersive technologies like AR and VR will democratize access to experience – and revolutionize learning.

Prestigious medical institutions such as Imperial College London are using HoloLens devices in operating theatres to spot key blood vessels, bones, and muscles helping to make procedures quicker and safer.

Surgeons have traditionally used a handheld ultrasound scanner to find vessels under the skin by detecting the movement of blood. However, this is very time-consuming and still requires some guesswork Click To Tweet

Patients who have suffered an accident may have open wounds that require reconstructive surgery. Skin and blood vessels are taken from a healthy part of the body and used to cover the wound, enabling it to close and heal properly. A vital step in the process is connecting the blood vessels of the “new” tissue with those at the site of the wound, so oxygenated blood can reach the area.

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Surgeons have traditionally used a handheld ultrasound scanner to find vessels under the skin by detecting the movement of blood. However, this is very time-consuming and still requires some guesswork as to where the vessels are and their path through body tissue, explained Dr Dimitri Amiras – a Consultant Musculoskeletal Radiologist at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust – as he walked me through the demo.

Prestigious medical institutions such as Imperial College London are using HoloLens devices in operating theatres to spot key blood vessels, bones, and muscles helping to make procedures quicker and safer Click To Tweet

The technology allows surgeons to take CT scans that have previously been completed and overlay 3D digital models of them onto a patient’s limb during reconstructive surgery Click To Tweet

The technology allows surgeons to take CT scans that have previously been completed and overlay 3D digital models of them onto a patient’s limb during reconstructive surgery. It has been used to help surgeons successfully move blood vessels from one part of the body to another in order to help open wounds heal more quickly.

At the Global Education and Skills Forum (GESF) in Dubai I got a chance to try it out first-hand, and it was pretty amazing, specially knowing that the Holograms I was looking at were based on real CT scans. Patients so far have included a 41-year-old man who injured his leg in a car crash, an 85-year-old woman who fractured her fibula and a person who developed an infection that required surgery.

“Mixed reality offers a new way to find these blood vessels accurately and quickly by overlaying scan images onto the patient during the operation. This technology allows us to experience the data that we have collected from patients before their operation in the most realistic and natural way. You look at the leg and essentially see inside of it; you see the bones and the course of the blood vessels,” he said.

Dr Philip Pratt, a Research Fellow in the Department of Surgery and Cancer at Imperial, said using the HoloLens is allowing surgeons to understand a patient’s unique anatomy very quickly and accurately and to collaborate more efficiently in teams as multiple surgeons wearing the headsets can also see what their colleagues are specifically looking at.

As well as a powerful visualization and collaboration tool for working surgeons, immersive technologies can also help solve a growing problem: the global shortage of such professionals, specially in the developing world Click To Tweet

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As well as a powerful visualization and collaboration tool for working surgeons, immersive technologies can also help solve a growing problem: the global shortage of such professionals, specially in the developing world. Training facilitated by immersive technologies can be instrumental in addressing the chronic shortage of trained professionals in areas such as teaching, healthcare and the digital economy.

Bassem F Hashash, from Augmented Reality training and collaboration platform Proximie, says an estimated five billion people worldwide do not have access to surgery This is due partly to the chronic lack of specialists available to perform such procedures, and the difficulty and expense involved in training new surgeons.

An estimated five billion people worldwide do not have access to surgery Click To Tweet

At the Global Education and Skills Forum #GESF in Dubai I got a chance to try it out first-hand, and it was pretty amazing, specially knowing that the Holograms I was looking at were based on real CT scans Click To Tweet

Training at scale is a real challenge, specially in areas such as healthcare, as you can only fit a small number of students in an Operating Room, and observation and practice is how one learns the crucial skillset necessary in such professions. Yet with immersive technology is possible for experts and students to virtually transport themselves into settings which allow them to flexibly collaborate and train. They can, in other words, become a democratizing force in education, by enabling students to virtually access experiences that would otherwise be out of their reach.

Using the HoloLens allows surgeons to understand a patient’s unique anatomy quickly and accurately and to collaborate more efficiently in teams Click To Tweet

According to Richard Vincent of Fundamental VR who was also showcasing his haptic Virtual Reality application at GESF (which let me have a great time literally messing around someone’s insides) it isn’t a matter of virtual training being “better,” but of enabling the benefits of experiential learning to become more widely accessible, allowing training to move beyond the limited model of “See one, do one, teach one” and opening up the possibilities for students to practice and perfect their skills in a safe and accurate environment.

Training at scale is a real challenge, specially in areas such as healthcare, as you can only fit a small number of students in an Operating Room, and observation and practice is how one learns the crucial skillset Click To Tweet

People all over the world will be able to easily access realistic experiences and simulations, learning and practicing new skills in entirely new ways Click To Tweet

In developing his own HoloLens application, Vincent has seen evidence that working with Mixed Reality tends to trigger different parts of the brain through immersion, so that content is assimilated more quickly and “sticks” with learners for longer, hence its potential to add to, enhance and accelerate learning. And Moore’s law, he adds means that his company’s current training simulation system costs one tenth of what it did a few years prior, and he expects that exponential driving down of cost to continue to increase sharply over the next five to ten years.

“As the technology progresses it will become more affordable and more integrated into our everyday lives. Just as most people here are carrying some sort of smartphone, the next step will be some sort of augmented reality device,” says Dr Amiras

 

“This is the new interface between computers and humans. What happens with technology is that when it works well, it disappears,” agrees Vincent. “Immersive Technology in the future won’t be about a bulky headset. What we have today is the equivalent of the Motorola phone of 1987. It will be glasses and contacts. This might feel scary now but in 10 years time it will feel as natural as carrying a smartphone in your pocket does now.”

All this means that people all over the world will be able to easily access realistic experiences and simulations, learning and practicing new skills in entirely new ways. Much in the same way as the widespread adoption of the Internet facilitated broader access to knowledge, Immersive technologies can enable broader and more egalitarian access to experience itself, and that’s pretty exciting.

 

This article was originally published on VRScout

 

 

For companies looking to get into Immersive technologies such as VR/AR/MR/XR our Virtual Reality Consultancy services offer guidance and support on how best to incorporate these into your brand strategy.

Alice Bonasio is a VR Consultant and Tech Trends’ Editor in Chief. She also regularly writes for Fast Company, Ars Technica, Quartz, Wired and others. Connect with her on LinkedIn and follow @alicebonasio on Twitter