You’ve heard of virtual reality, but how about augmented reality? The name may sound strange, but chances are you used it and didn’t notice. You might even have played a game that was built on it. A popular example is Pokémon Go, a smartphone app that lets you run around your neighborhood or community to “catch” wild Pokémon that appear on the screen as if they appeared right in front of you.
Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality are closely linked. In both, you can participate in a computerized virtual world that appears in front of you, be it on your phone screen or a headset.
But there is one really important difference. Virtual reality is immersive. This means that you can immerse yourself in a completely made-up world with picture and sound. While you can get into it and it can even look realistic or lifelike, virtual reality exists completely independently of anything real.
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What makes augmented reality special and useful in medicine is the merging of virtual images with the real world, including real objects and real people. This means that using augmented reality, your surgeon, doctor, or nurse could see things in front of them that they otherwise couldn’t see – like the veins that run through your arm, a broken bone, a brain tumor, x-rays, or health records – – without taking their attention away from you to look at another screen.
“[In augmented reality], in the room you are in, something of you is walking in, ”said Greg Dorsainville, manager of immersive computing at NYU Langone Health. “You are in your world and data is overlaid on the elements of the world.”
Augmented Reality in the clinic
As technology improves, augmented reality has a lot of potential to influence medicine. Augmented Reality can find its way into the primary care clinic, the operating theater, the emergency room and the dental practice. Doctors could use it to plan plastic surgeries and other complex surgeries, for example. You could also use it to accompany her in various types of operations.
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Augmented Reality involves using software technology to improve the real-world environment, says Thomas Hopkins, MD, chief medical officer at a company called AccuVein. There are many ways in health care to improve technology, educate people, improve procedures, and care for people.
AccuVein is an example. The handheld device uses laser-based technology to “see” through your skin and into your veins. It is designed to make it easier for a doctor, nurse, or others to find a vein to draw blood or place an infusion. Hopkins, who is also an assistant professor of anesthesiology at Duke University Health System, says there is already some data showing that the augmented reality device is making things easier for both doctors and the people they treat. Healthcare providers are more likely to get it right the first time, reducing the risk of additional needle sticks while saving time.
Augmented Reality in the operating room
Augmented Reality is only just finding its way into higher-level medical care. In June 2020, neurosurgeons at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore announced the first augmented reality surgery. A doctor used it to place six screws in place during spine surgery to help with severe back pain. Soon after, they used it to remove a spinal tumor from another.
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The augmented reality technology included a headset with a display through which doctors could see the person. For example, they could project images from X-ray or CT scans onto the body so that they could see both at the same time. As long as these images are properly aligned, it is as if surgeons have x-ray vision.
Timothy Witham, MD, the Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon who led the operations, says the technology acts like a GPS and shows the way in the operating room. The alternative is for doctors to do their best to place screws “hands-free”.
“All techniques have advantages and disadvantages,” he says. “The main advantage [of doing it freehand] it is the fastest. But it requires the best knowledge of anatomy and experience to do this almost blindly using anatomical landmarks. “
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It is possible to use an X-ray, but that will place a radiation exposure on you and your surgeons. Witham says he routinely uses augmented reality tools instead. He’s found it to be 98% accurate, which is at least as good as any other method.
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“I feel more comfortable using it,” he says. The level of anxiety has gone down a notch in terms of worrying about where to put tools. There is additional confidence to do it, and that helps. Ultimately, this benefits the patient.
One reason for its early use in spinal surgery is that the rigid structure of the spine makes it easy to correctly link computerized images to the body. Witham says it would be harder to use for surgery on other areas like the abdomen or chest, where movement makes it much harder to balance the virtual and real world.
Augmented Reality in Medical Education
While many applications in medicine are not yet finished, augmented reality is already being used regularly by doctors and nursing staff in training.
“When it’s not properly tracked [in the operating room], if you had mistakes, ”says Dorsainville. “You don’t need this precision when teaching and learning.”
At NYU Langone, students and faculties use augmented reality tools to access study materials and learn human anatomy. For example, you can rotate a detailed 3D model of the heart on a computer or phone. At the Human Anatomy Laboratory, they can scan a QR code – those ornate squares you scan for a menu in a restaurant – on a carcass they’re examining to get more information about what they’re seeing, including videos of Operations or related lectures.
“This is really very early,” says Dorsainville. “But when augmented reality is done well, it’s something very special.”
There’s more to come
Healthcare tends to lag behind when it comes to adopting technology, Hopkins says.
There are good reasons for it. Doctors need time to prove that a new technology is safe and will benefit them and the people who treat them. There are also issues related to costs and the integration of new technology into existing workflows.
Despite the challenges, experts expect more applications of augmented reality to be seen in medicine. However, it remains to be seen which technologies and applications will prove themselves in the clinic. You are likely to see rapid changes as technology companies work to develop new applications for augmented reality inside and outside the clinic.
“It’s a big battlefield who will write the future of this type of technology,” says Dorsainville.
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