By now it has been well established how virtual reality (VR) can be used to help in various healthcare and therapeutic contexts. Taking this idea further, Accenture have built an application using the SAP Cloud Platform and SAP Leonardo technologies along with VR to help amputees with a specific problem – phantom limb pain.
Accenture Liquid Studio in Brazil used an armband with SAP Leonardo capabilities combined with VR dashboards to create a platform that encourages patients to wear the prosthetics, using videogame ‘gamification’ to try and make therapy exercises for engaging.
The dashboard also helps physical therapists diagnose the treatment of phantom limb pain, allowing for the creation of personalised therapy plans, which takes into account the measuring and analysing of the electrical signals in the patients’ muscles.
The company is testing the armband in physical therapy treatments at the Hospital das Clinicas in São Paulo, Brazil. Initial finding from the trial have shown patients reporting greater improvements and better self-esteem that patients only engaging in physical therapy. Physical therapists also reported more accurate calibration of prosthetics and more progress in patient treatment.
“Phantom limb pain is a chronic, physically and mentally debilitating condition for most patients after undergoing amputations,” said Candida Luzo, head of Occupational Therapy at Hospital das Clinicas. “Accenture has demonstrated a viable, low-cost option to assist in the rehabilitation of patients with amputations. This will be an invaluable tool in our physical and occupational therapy programs.”
“Our application takes intelligent technologies such as Internet of Things, analytics and virtual reality to rapidly create an easy-to-use, cost-effective application. It captures real-time data for better measurements and personalized therapy plans that can improve physical progress and decrease phantom limb pain for people with amputations,” said Daniel Gonzalez, managing director and Accenture Liquid Studio Lead for Accenture Brazil. “We developed this application with input from healthcare professionals and patients to help drive social change and transformation by tackling challenges in new ways.”
For future coverage of Accenture’s work in VR, keep checking back with VRFocus.