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Augmented reality technology helps surgeons see through the body
Augmented reality headsets can help doctors 'see through' organs and tissues in the operating theatre, and improve the outcome of reconstructive surgery for patients, a study has found.
Augmented reality headsets can help doctors ‘see through’ organs and
tissues in the operating theatre, and improve the outcome of
reconstructive surgery for patients. (Image: Reuters)“We are one of the first groups in the world to use the HoloLens successfully in the operating theatre,” said Philip Pratt, a research fellow at Imperial College London. “Through this initial series of patient cases we have shown that the technology is practical, and that it can provide a benefit to the surgical team,” said Pratt, lead author of the study published in the journal European Radiology Experimental.
“With the HoloLens, you look at the leg and essentially see inside of it. You see the bones, the course of the blood vessels, and can identify exactly where the targets are located,” said Pratt. Following a car accident or severe trauma, patients may have tissue damage or open wounds that require reconstructive surgery using fasciocutaneous flaps. These flaps of tissue, which are taken from elsewhere on the body and include the skin and blood vessels, are used to cover the wound and enable 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 new tissue and keep it alive. The standard approach for this element of reconstructive surgery has been the use of a handheld scanner which uses ultrasound to identify blood vessels under the skin by detecting the movement of blood pulsing through them, enabling the surgeon to approximate where the vessels are and their course through the tissue.
“Augmented reality offers a new way to find these blood vessels under the skin accurately and quickly by overlaying scan images onto the patient during the operation,” said Pratt. In the procedures used to trial the technology, five patients requiring reconstructive surgery on their legs underwent CT scans to map the structure of the limb, including the position of bones and the location and course of blood vessels.
Images from the scans were then segmented into bone, muscle, fatty tissue and blood vessels and loaded into intermediary software to create 3D models of the leg. These models were then fed into specially designed software that renders the images for the headset, which in turn overlays the model onto what the surgeon can see in the operating theatre. Clinical staff are able to manipulate these AR images through hand gestures to make any fine adjustments and correctly line up the model with surgical landmarks on the patient’s limbs, such as the knee joint or ankle bone.
Augmented Reality In Healthcare Will Be Revolutionary - The Medical ...
medicalfuturist.com/augmented-reality-in-healthcare-will-be-revolutionary/
Augmented Reality In Healthcare Will Be Revolutionary
Augmented
reality is one of the most promising digital technologies at present –
look at the success of Pokémon Go – and it has the potential to change
healthcare and everyday medicine completely for physicians and patients
alike.
By now, it is official: Pokémon Go conquered the world. TechCrunch reported that
on the day when the game was launched, it immediately surpassed the
daily time usage of Facebook, SnapChat or Twitter by the average iOS
user on mobile phones. Tom Curry, a man living in New Zealand quit his job to become a full-time Pokémon hunter. In Central Park, herds of Pokémon Go players almost caused a stampede as they tried to capture a rare type of the imagined animal.
Rafael Grossmann, the first surgeon who performed an operation with the help of Google Glass,
told me that Pokémon Go represents the ultimate gamification of an
“activity” app, and that he does not think the inventors of the game
such as Nintendo expected nor planned this effect in people.
So why is the game so popular and what does it have to do with the future of medicine?
The response is augmented reality (AR)
and the rising interest of people in its use. Pokémon Go is made with
exactly this technology: the device (in this case your phone) transmits a
live or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment which is
augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video,
graphics or GPS data. In the future, augmented reality could be a
built-in feature in a glass, headset or digital contact lens.
Augmented reality differs from its most
known “relative”, virtual reality (VR) since the latter creates a 3D
world completely detaching the user from reality. There are two respects
in which AR is unique: users do not lose touch with reality and it puts
information into eyesight as fast as possible. These distinctive
features enable AR to become a driving force in the future of medicine.
At the moment, there are certain
hindrances to overcome but Grossmann thinks that AR and VR will be very
common in healthcare within the next 3-5 years. According to Grossmann,
the biggest obstacles are related to education, cultural change and
acceptance, but the technical obstacles are absolutely temporal and not
an issue at all, and cost-related barriers will also disappear in the
future.
So, let me show you the best examples of augmented reality in medicine.
1) Augmented reality can save lives through showing defibrillators nearby
What would you
do if a person next to you collapsed suddenly? All kinds of thoughts
would rush through your head, and no matter whether you would think of
calling an ambulance, a doctor or your mom for help, you would
definitely reach for your phone.
do if a person next to you collapsed suddenly? All kinds of thoughts
would rush through your head, and no matter whether you would think of
calling an ambulance, a doctor or your mom for help, you would
definitely reach for your phone.
And I suggest you to consider downloading the Layar reality browser combined with AED4EU
app to your phone next to the basic emergency numbers so the next time
you get into a similar situation, you will be able to help more.
AED4EU was created by Lucien Engelen
from the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, The Netherlands.
Its users can add places where automated external defibrillators or AEDs
are located and this database can be accessed through this new
application. Moreover, with the Layar browser, you can project the exact
location of the nearest AEDs on the screen of your phone and it would
take a minute to find them and help those in need. So augmented reality
brings crucial pieces of information to those in need or danger.
2) Google Glass might help new mothers struggling with breastfeeding
It is a matter of fact that Google Glass
has the potential to revolutionize healthcare, but to be honest I would
have never thought of the possibility of helping new mothers with
breastfeeding through this technology.
In 2014, the Melbourne office of an
innovation company called Small World conducted a Google Glass trial
with the Australian Breastfeeding Association that effectively allowed
their telephone counsellors to see through the eyes of mothers while
they breastfed at home. Through such a way struggling mothers could get
expert help at any time of the day and they did not even have to put
down the baby from their arms. By sharing the patient’s perspective,
consultations get to a new level.
3) Patients can describe their symptoms better through augmented reality
Patients often struggle when they have
to describe their symptoms to their doctors accurately. In other cases,
people often find themselves overreacting a medical situation or on the
contrary, belittle the problem. In ophthalmology, augmented reality
might be the answer for patient education.
EyeDecide
is one of its kind medical app, which uses the camera display for
simulating the impact of specific conditions on a person’s vision. Using
apps like EyeDecide, doctors can show simulation of the vision of a
patient suffering from a specific condition. For instance, the app can
demonstrate the impact of Cataract or AMD and thus helping patients
understand their symptoms and their actual medical state. If patients
can experience the long-term effects of their lifestyle on their health,
it could motivate people to make positive changes.
4) Nurses can find veins easier with augmented reality
The start-up company AccuVein is using AR technology to make both nurses’ and patients’ lives easier. AccuVein’s marketing specialist, Vinny Luciano said
40% of IVs (intravenous injections) miss the vein on the first stick,
with the numbers getting worse for children and the elderly. AccuVein
uses augmented reality by using a handheld scanner that projects over
skin and shows nurses and doctors where veins are in the patients’
bodies. Luciano estimates that it’s been used on more than 10 million
patients, making finding a vein on the first stick 3.5x more likely.
Such technologies could assist healthcare professionals and extend their
skills.
5) Motivating runners through zombies
Imagine that you are walking through a
dark and abandoned alley, and you suddenly hear the groaning and the
slow movement of a strange creature. I am pretty sure that even the
laziest person would speed up after realizing that a “real zombie” is
after him. This is the basic idea behind the Zombies, Run! application.
The game monopolizes on the fact that
fear can motivate people and the fact that everything seems to be more
fun when turned into a game. This app is perfect for those who consider
running a boring activity. If you not only hear but also see virtual
zombies projected onto your phone or device’s screen, you will not only
increase your speed and endurance, but also feel that time is just
flying by.
6) Pharma companies can provide more innovative drug information
Have you ever been curious about how a
drug works in your body? Even if you got interested in discovering how
the distant world of pills and medicaments work, I bet you lost all your
enthusiasm after you read the boring and undecipherable drug
description. Now, augmented reality is here to change it.
With the help of AR, patients can see how the drug works in 3D in front of their eyes instead of just reading long descriptions on the bottle.
Lab workers could monitor their experiments with augmented reality
equipment. In factories, workers could start working without hands on
trainings as the device would tell them what to do, and how to do it.
7) Augmented reality can assist surgeons in the OR
Doctors and even patients are aware of
the fact that when it comes to surgery, precision is of prime
importance. Now, AR can help surgeons become more efficient at
surgeries. Whether they are conducting a minimally invasive procedure or
locating a tumor in liver, AR healthcare apps can help save lives and
treat patients seamlessly.
Medsights Tech
developed a software to test the feasibility of using augmented reality
to create accurate 3-dimensional reconstructions of tumors. The complex
image reconstructing technology basically empowers surgeons with x-ray
views – without any radiation exposure, in real time.
The earlier mentioned Grossmann, who was part of the team performing the first live operation using medical VR,
told me that HoloAnatomy, which is using HoloLens to display real
data-anatomical models, is a wonderful and rather intuitive use of AR
having obvious advantages over traditional methods.
8) Google’s digital contact lens can transform how we look at the world
The age of digital contact lenses and
retinal implants are upon us and they have great potential in
transforming healthcare. Retinal implants might give vision back to
those who lost it or grant humans supervision augmenting what we can do.
Digital contact lenses could transform both how we look at the world
while also revolutionizing diabetes care. Google aims to produce digital, multi-sensor contact lens
which will be able to measure blood sugar levels. On the other hand,
diabetes care constitutes rather a side feature, while more importantly
digital contact lenses will be able to augment reality – for example to
turn the page of an e-book by blinking an eye.
Although current devices such as Microsoft Hololens are far from the “perfect” experience,
but there is no reason to believe that we will not get there soon.
Thus, the most effective way to get used to this future trend, if we
start to educate ourselves and our children.
Do you remember which your favorite toy
as a kid was? For example, I always had a passion for LEGO. Assembling
little LEGO-parts into something new, creating castles, cars, complex
cities – that is one of the best activities in the world. It stimulates
your fantasy, your creativity, develops your skills for holistic vision
as well as your attention to detail. Lately, there are various
videogames which attempt to recreate LEGO in the virtual space – such as
Minecraft.
Parents often complain that their kids
are just sitting in from of some screens not learning anything about
their environment and themselves, but I do not agree. Minecraft also
enhances creativity, develops the way children see the world around them
– but in a different way as LEGO. I think that from here, it is only
one leap before we reach LEGO with AR where the advantages of building
something in the real world might be combined with virtual imagination.
This way, our kids would be able to know what real is real, but would
also be ready to exploit the opportunities AR can provide us with.
I think it would be a great way
to get accustomed to the future since I do believe augmented reality is
the future. If you still do not believe me, just look at those people
chasing Pokémons on the streets.
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