Introduction to AR and VR in Healthcare
AR and VR have advanced in healthcare, particularly in surgery and medical education. Once linked to gaming, these technologies now improve precision, enhance learning, and revolutionize patient care, allowing clinicians to plan and perform procedures with greater accuracy.
AR and VR offer complementary applications in surgery and training. While VR immerses users in a virtual world, AR overlays real-time data onto the real world. These technologies are transforming healthcare, improving surgical accuracy and training experiences.
What is Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR)?
Augmented Reality (AR) overlays digital elements, like images and data, onto the real world in real time. In medicine, AR projects relevant data, such as medical images and patient information, to assist surgeons during procedures.
VR creates an immersive digital space, allowing users to interact with a virtual world. In surgery, it aids pre-operative planning, complex maneuver preparation, and simulations in risk-free environments.
Both AR and VR are revolutionizing medical education and surgery, offering improved patient outcomes, enhanced learning, and reduced risks in medical procedures.
Key Benefits in Surgery and Training
Improved Surgical Precision: AR enhances surgery by projecting 3D visualizations of organs or tumors onto a patient’s body, aiding precision. VR offers realistic simulations, allowing surgeons to practice and refine skills before operating on real patients.
Enhanced Medical Training: Hands-on training with patient safety is one of the most challenging issues in medical education. VR offers medical students realistic surgery simulations, allowing practice without patient risk, and helping build confidence and expertise before real procedures.
Minimizing Human Error:
Surgery carries inherent risks, and even small mistakes can have serious consequences. AR and VR help reduce human error by providing real-time data, simulations, and guidance. For example, AR can display detailed anatomy or alert surgeons to potential complications, improving decision-making during critical moments.
Remote Assistance and Telemedicine: AR and VR enable remote surgeries, allowing surgeons to collaborate in real-time across distances. This is especially valuable in telemedicine, reducing knowledge gaps and improving care quality in underserved regions.
Enhanced Patient Education: AR and VR also can be exploited for patient education of both medical conditions and possibilities of therapy.VR lets patients explore surgeries and understand procedures, while AR provides helpful data during consultations, aiding in better understanding and informed decision-making.
Applications of AR and VR in Surgery
Preoperative Planning: AR and VR create 3D models from imaging scans, allowing surgeons to refine procedures before surgery. In neurosurgery, VR enables the virtual practice of key steps before the operation.
Real-time Surgical Guidance with AR: AR provides real-time information during surgery, overlaying organs and blood vessels onto the patient’s surface. It enhances precision in minimally invasive procedures, reducing complications.
Robotic-Assisted Surgery: AR and VR enhance robotic-assisted surgery by improving human-robot interaction. VR allows surgeons to practice with robotic devices, while AR provides real-time feedback, showing the precise position of instruments during surgery.
Surgical Simulations: VR enables surgeons to practice procedures repeatedly in a risk-free virtual environment, helping develop muscle memory. It can be applied to various specialties, including orthopedics, neurosurgery, and cardiac surgery.
Postoperative Assessment and Rehabilitation: AR and VR support post-surgery rehabilitation by offering safe, controlled exercises for movement restoration. AR provides visual feedback during physical therapy, tracking progress and adjusting exercises as needed.
Challenges and Limitations of AR and VR in Surgery
Although there is a huge potential for AR and VR in surgery, there are many challenges and limitations to be overcome
High Cost of Equipment: AR and VR technologies and associated hardware and software are costly to apply, especially in modest medical units. High equipment cost and continuous equipment updates are also a blocking factor for broad adoption, especially, in low-resource environments.
Technical Limitations: Despite significant development, AR and VR still have technical limitations. For instance, the quality of resolution and accuracy of AR oversprays may be less than that desired by a surgeon. VR simulations are based on a high level of fidelity in order to attain a close-to-real condition as much as possible.
Training and Adaptation: To be able to use AR and VR as they should be, surgeons and physicians must be properly trained. Despite the value these technologies bring to the operating room, a learning curve exists to use them effectively. Appropriate training and experience in a system is very important to make sure AR and VR tools working at their optima.
Data Security and Privacy: The introduction of AR/VR technologies into medicine presents challenges related to data protection and confidentiality. Protecting patient data during the use of VR simulation or in the presentation using AR technology is also of paramount importance. Implementing strict protocols will safeguard confidential medical information.
Practical examples of AR and VR in surgery and training.
Osso VR: Osso VR is a system offering high-fidelity VR surgical simulation to healthcare professionals. It allows surgeons to practice procedures in a virtual environment, improving their skills without the risk of harm. Usage by medical schools, hospitals, and surgical training centers is worldwide.
AccuVein: AccuVein uses AR to help healthcare providers locate veins for intravenous (IV) access. The device uses infrared light to create a live image of veins, enhancing the precision of procedures like blood draws or IV injections.
Microsoft HoloLens: Microsoft HoloLens is one of the most sophisticated AR devices in surgery. Through the use of a 3D hologram of a patient’s anatomy, surgeons can look at the hologram of that anatomy and superimpose it over the patient’s body during the surgery, making real-time insights and helping surgical precision.
Intuitive Surgical’s da Vinci System: The da Vinci surgical robot interlinks robotics, VR, and AR to support minimally invasive surgery. It is the surgeons who operate a console, and augmented reality (AR) overlays that direct the tools during the operation, allowing a higher precision.
Conclusion
AR and VR are transforming surgery and medical training by improving accuracy, education, and patient care. While challenges remain, the future of AR and VR in healthcare looks promising.
As these technologies evolve, their adoption in surgery and medical training will provide safer, more effective, and personalized care.
Surgeons and medical professionals adopting AR and VR will improve their skills and contribute to a new era of healthcare innovation.
