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英国科幻作家Arthur Clarke说过:“任何先进的技术都和魔法没法区分”。虚拟现实就是这种先进的技术。最近在硅谷奇点大学的指数医学峰会上有两个非常有趣应用展示给了大家。
虚拟现实手术培训
据预测,到2030年,外科医生的手术量会翻倍以满足基本医疗的需要。一个有效的培训机制就非常的重要了。Shafi Ahmed医生认为虚拟现实就是解决这个问题的答案。早在2014年,Ahmed医生就用谷歌眼镜录制了手术训练视频。在2016年,他更进一步完成了一台肿瘤手术的360度直播。为了推广虚拟现实手术培训,他的Medical Realities公司正在制作世界首个手术虚拟现实训练模块。目前,Ahmed医生正在和Thrive公司合作探讨远程医疗协作。在一个演示里面,Ahmed医生和其他三位医生在不同的地点登陆到系统当中,实时的讨论病人的病例。
虚拟现实治疗
Cedars-Sinai的虚拟现实医疗领域先锋Brennan Spiegel亲眼目睹了虚拟现实技术对患者治疗的积极作用。他带领团队研究新的技术,比如智能手机应用,虚拟现实,可穿戴生物传感器和社交媒体对改善健康的影响。Spiegel提到了一个患有克罗病的年轻人,他在住院治疗期间非常渴望能回到家里。Spiegel的团队在他家里架设了一台360度摄像机并给病人带上虚拟现实头显。这极大的缓解了病人的紧张情绪。团队还开发了一款虚拟现实应用来帮助高血压患者。在程序当中,患者被带到厨房里面,告诉他们那些食物含有钠。然后,病人又被带到自己的身体里面,在这里他们可以看到摄入钠对他们身体造成的影响。Spiegel团队希望能带来虚拟现实的药房,在里面患者们都可以找到最正确的治疗方法。
以上就是虚拟现实在医疗领域的两个应用。而这只是一个开始,随着虚拟现实增强现实技术的一步一步成熟,更加让人想象不到的治疗方法会更深刻的影响医疗健康领域。
原文
Virtual Reality Is Reshaping Medical Training and Treatment
Arthur C. Clarke, a British science fiction writer, is well known for once writing, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
Consumer virtual reality is going through a rough patch as high expectations and hype have deflated somewhat, but when VR does work, it can feel a bit like magic.
At Singularity University’s Exponential Medicine Summit this week, the audience learned about fascinating virtual reality applications within a mix of medical contexts.
Here’s a look at two we found particularly interesting.
Surgical Training in Virtual Reality
Shafi Ahmed, co-founder of Virtual Medics and Medical Realities, spoke again this year at Exponential Medicine. Last year we wrote about Ahmed’s efforts to solve the huge global shortage of trained surgeons:
“According to the Lancet commission on global surgery, the surgical workforce would have to double to meet the needs of basic surgical care for the developing world by 2030. Dr. Ahmed imagines being able to train thousands of surgeons simultaneously in virtual reality.”
With this in mind, Ahmed made a splash back in 2014 when he reached 14,000 surgeons across 100 different countries by using Google Glass to stream a surgical training session. In 2016, Ahmed took this a step further by live-streaming a cancer surgery in virtual reality that was shot in 360-degree video while he removed a colon tumor from a patient.
Ahmed’s philosophy is clear. He says, “Forget one-to-one. My idea is one to many. I want to share knowledge with the masses.” To achieve this, his company Medical Realities is building the world’s first interactive VR training module for surgeons. After these successes, Ahmed began searching for other low-cost, high-tech platforms to leverage for surgical training. He landed on social media.
Last year, Ahmed used Snapchat glasses to record an operation in ten-second clips that were uploaded to his Snapchat story. It was a huge success, receiving two million views and 100,000 YouTube downloads. Ahmed said, “It’s incredible reach, and it’s free. That’s the kind of world we live in.” Ahmed also streamed Twitter’s first live operation.
Now, Ahmed is working with virtual reality company Thrive to push the boundaries of remote collaboration in virtual reality. The platform enables doctors to remotely log into a shared virtual office to discuss patient cases. Ahmed showed an example of four doctors from four different locations who logged into a virtual office together to discuss a patient’s case in real time. Inside the virtual office the doctors were even able to access and review patients’ medical files.
Virtual Reality for Therapeutics
Brennan Spiegel, a pioneer of VR in healthcare at Cedars-Sinai, has witnessed firsthand the positive impact of using virtual reality with patients for therapeutic treatment. At Cedars-Sinai, Spiegel leads a team that studies how technologies like smartphone apps, VR, wearable biosensors, and social media can improve health outcomes.
Some of the findings have been incredible.
Spiegel told the story of a young adult suffering from severe Crohn’s disease, which forced him to spend 100 days of the last year in the hospital. The most healing environment he can think of, however, is his grandmother’s living room. Spiegel’s team was able to place a Samsung 360 camera in the grandmother’s living room then give the patient a VR headset to virtually transport him there. The experience nearly brought him to tears and is a perfect example of how VR can make patients in hospital treatment more comfortable.
Spiegel’s team also had success using VR to help men with high blood pressure. Inside of the VR program, users are transported into a kitchen and educated on which types of food contain sodium. The program then brings users inside a human body, where they can see the targeted impact of the sodium intake.
Spiegel’s dream is to see a VR pharmacy where the right treatment experience is mapped to the right patient.
Virtual and augmented reality are creating novel methods in health care for treatment, training, and doctor collaboration. These are just a few examples of practical uses showing VR’s potential applied to medicine. In many ways, however, this is only the beginning of what’s to come as VR and AR mature.
Technology doesn’t always need to feel like magic, but when it can for a struggling patient or doctor seeking access to training, that’s an extraordinary thing for health care.
via:singularityhub
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