Category: Health

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Novarad AR System for HoloLens Cleared by FDA for Medical Use

There have already been a number of applications for immersive technology in the medical and healthcare sector, from teaching new doctors to helping people overcome addictions and phobias. Now The OpenSight augmented reality (AR) system has become the first medical AR solution for the Microsoft HoloLens to be cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US.

The OpenSight AR system from Novarad has been given 510(k) clearance fr use in pre-operatove surgical planning. The system renders 2D and 3D images of patients interactively, while accurately overlaying them on to the patients body.

“This is transformative technology that will unite preoperative imaging with augmented reality to improve the precision, speed and safety of medical procedures,” stated Dr. Wendell Gibby, Novarad CEO and co-creator of OpenSight. “This internal visualization can now be achieved without the surgeon ever making an incision, improving outcomes in a world of more precise medicine.”

While VR systems have been used in pre-operative planning before, the OpenSight system lets surgeons see the 3D patient images and the patient themselves at the same time, avoiding the possible disconnect that can happen when using VR systems.

The OpenSight system lets medical personnel get a better understand of the relevant anatomical relationships, or highlight certain specific areas to avoid or concentrate ob. Multiplate headsets can be used so those present can see the same thing, allowing for the training of less experienced personnel.

Novarad have also developed a teaching version of the software that lets medical students perform virtual dissections on medical cadavers.

The company has been working in medical imaging for many years, providing a customisable workflow and imaging solutions, which it hopes to continue into the new frontier of immersive technology. Further information can be found on the Novarad website.

For future coverage of VR and AR in healthcare, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Stand Up To Cancer Launches VR Films Starring UK Celebrities

It is very difficult to find anyone whose life has not been affected by cancer in some way, and even with advances in technology and treatment, it continues to affect millions of people. As a result, funding is still needed in order to research new ways to fight the disease in its many forms. Stand Up To Cancer has launched three virtual reality (VR) films staring well-known UK celebrities such as Stephen Fry, Olivia Colman, Danny Dyer, Jo Brand and Jason Manford, among others to give viewers insight into elements of the campaign.

Stand Up To Cancer is a joint fund-raising campaign from Cancer Research UK and Channel 4, which seeks to raise money to accelerate cancer research aimed developing new treatments that will help save lives.

In the first film of the series, Olivia Colman takes viewers on a trip through the human body, shrinking to the size of a cell and demonstrating the use of ‘nano-tech rug parcels’ for cancer treatment. Another film sees Stephen Fry exploring the history of cancer, from its earliest known instances in dinosaurs to recent scientific breakthroughs.

Olivia Colman said: “I’m so proud to be a part of these exciting films and dearly hope it will spur more people on to raise money for Stand Up To Cancer’s research. With the extraordinary advances being achieved by this country’s most exceptional minds, it’s an important story to share. Such amazing things are happening in labs right here in the UK.”

Stephen Fry, who was treated for prostate cancer earlier this year, said: “I’ve always believed that history matters greatly. The past illuminates the present. The history of cancer is a pivotal and fascinating story. These wonderful films for Stand Up To Cancer lay that past bare, taboos and all, and stand testimony to the huge strides humans have made in beating this horrible disease.”

Special headsets for the experience are available at WHSmith stores all across the UK. For future coverage of new and upcoming VR experiences, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Transtech Tickets Soon To Rise In Price

The Transformative Technology Conference and Expo, also known as Transtech, will be taking place soon. The event is focussed on uses of technology to improve mental health and emotional wellbeing, and covers many areas including psychology, neuroscience and immersive technology. Time is running out for anyone who wants to get tickets before the price rise kicks in, however.

Transtech 2018 is the 4th time the event has been held, and the organisers have arranged a variety of keynote speeches as well as break-out discussions, workshops and 1:1 matching so creators and innovators can talk with the right people to move products forward.

One of the speakers as the event is Philip Rosedale, one of the main names behind Second Life and the founder of virtual reality (VR) content company High Fidelity. He will be hosting a workshop during the event called ‘Establishing A Global Challenge for Transformation’.

Also set to speak at the event is Nenea Reeves, CEO and co-founder of TRIPP, who will be speaking on the subject of building mood-altering VR experiences. A broad range of other speakers from medical, technical and scientific backgrounds will also be at the event, such as Dr Ben Goertzel who will be speaking about AI and Blockchain, or Dr Victor Stretcher, from the University of Michigan, who will be discussing performance, purpose and public health.

Transtech is scheduled to take place from 9th-10th November, at El Camino Real in Palo Alto, California. General Admission tickets cost $275 (USD) and are available until 15th October, 2018. After that date, Late Registration tickets are available for $350, which is available until 9th November. Alternatively, Investor/Sponsor tickets cost $1,000, and VIP tickets cost $599.

Transtech Conference - Logo

Further information and tickets can be found on the EventBrite page. For further coverage on Transtech and other upcoming events relating to immersive technology, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Augmenteum Reveals Thorassist: An AR Education And Training Tool For Learning Pulmonary Anatomy

One of the topics that always generates a lot of interest on VRFocus, and for myself personally are any developments that involve virtual reality (VR) – or any form of immersive technology for that matter – in the field of healthcare or medical technology (medtech).

AugmentumIn fact, now that the technology has been readily available for a good couple of years, we’re seeing an uptick in the number of stories and updates specifically related to matters of health. As studies and other experiments begun months ago now begin to come to fruition.

The latest development comes out of the US and is actually realted to augmented reality (AR). A presentation is being made today at the American College of Chest Physicians’ (CHEST) annual meeting that will feature Thorassist – a multi-user AR education and training experience created by the company Augmenteum. Thorassist is a learning tool that will assist in teaching of the anatomy of the lungs using AR to display a digital image reconstructed from real-life imagery. It will also allow medical students to visualise bronchoscopic anatomy procedures a physician would perform.

“Thorassist is an exciting new tool to help educate doctors in the complex field of interventional pulmonology,” explains creator Carla Lamb, M.D. “Knowledge of the anatomy and the experience of procedures is challenging for new specialists to understand and retain. Thorassist provides an environment in which I can help students understand the anatomy and learn procedures using detailed models, at much lower cost than other technologies such as virtual reality.”

Augmenteum - Logo

“Classroom [the template utilised by Augmenteum in which users use iPads to see and interact with digital 3D models] begins to realize our vision of delivering AR experiences for everyone, everywhere,” Explains David Palacios, Augmenteum’s Founder and Chief Technical Officer. “It shows the tremendous potential of an AR experience shared by many simultaneous users. We will create additional shared multi-user experiences that bring AR to many different applications, from the workplace to home.”

“Thorassist is an outstanding implementation of our Classroom experience,” adds CEO Andrew O’Brien. “It utilizes AR to visualize 3D models to improve end users’ understanding of very complex content and procedures. It leverages Augmenteum’s ability to deliver shared AR experiences for many simultaneous users, as well as provide a “take-home” experience for individuals to use on their own.”

You can find out more about Augmentum’s work on their website. VRFocus will bring you more news about developments in VR, AR and beyond throughout the week.

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Accenture Builds VR Title To Help People with Amputations

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.

Accenture - Logo

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.”

SAP for the Healthcare Industry

For future coverage of Accenture’s work in VR, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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University of Kent Studies Impact of VR On Exercise

A number of virtual reality (VR) apps try and encourage users to be more active, by making physical activity into a game with tangible goals. A study by the University of Kent now shows that using VR during physical activity can have a positive impact for users.

The research was led by PhD candidate Maria Matsangidou from the University of Kent’s School of engineering and Digital Arts. The purpose of the study was to determine how using VR while exercising could affect performance by measuring a range of criteria including heart rate, pain intensity and perceived exhaustion.

Eighty individuals volunteered to be monitored when performing an isometric bicep curl, set at 20% of the maximum weight that they could lift. The participants were then asked to hold it for as long as possible Half the group acted as a control, performing the lift in a room that held a chair, table and yoga mat.

Meanwhile, the other half of the group was placed in the same room, but given a VR headset which showed the same environment, including a virtual re-creation of the arm and the weight. This group was tasked with doing the same lift and hold as the control group.

The results showed a clear reduction in the perception of pain and effort when wearing the VR technology. The data showed that after one minute the VR group showed a 10% lower pain intensity compared to the non-VR control group.

In addition, the VR group went for two minutes longer before reporting exhaustion than the non-VR control group. The VR group also showed a lower heart rate of three beats per minute than the non-VR control group.

Lead researcher Maria Matsangidou said: “It is clear from the data gathered that the use of VR technology can improve performance during exercise on a number of criteria. This could have major implications for exercise regimes for everyone, from occasional gym users to professional athletes.”

The paper has been published in the journal Psychology Sports and Exercise. For future coverage of VR use in health and wellbeing, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Lenovo Mirage Solo VR Experience Offered to Starlight Children’s Foundation

For children who are hospitalised, or who have to undergo regular medical treatment, it can be a frightening and isolating experience. Virtual reality (VR) can offer an escape from the clinical environment, and has also been shown to reduce pain and anxiety. SOTI, a provider of mobile and IoT devices solutions have partnered with Lenovo to work with the Starlight Children’s Foundation to offer children in hospitals access to VR experiences on the Lenovo Mirage Solo.

The specially created ‘Starlight Xperience’ runs on the Lenovo Mirage Solo, which is powered by Google’s Daydream platform. The custom program has been designed to entertain, educate and inspire hospitalised children.

Lenovo Mirage Solo with Daydream

The VR experience will be delivered to Starlight’s network of over 800 paediatric partners by using its 360-degree program distribution program. The VR Starlight Xperience offers equipment and content which has been designed for the entertainment and distraction of children, with the hope that it will become a standard VR solution for paediatric care providers.

“We are very excited to work with Lenovo and the Starlight Project,” said Larry Klimczyk, vice president, Strategic Alliances at SOTI. “Our latest integration with the Lenovo Mirage Solo will bring countless innovations to the healthcare and education sectors.”

“By partnering with SOTI, Lenovo can combine VR technology with SOTI solutions, ensuring our device is securely managed and successfully implemented. We look forward to expanding the use of VR and delighting both consumers and the enterprise alike,” said Gunjan Shah, general manager for North America Smart Devices at Lenovo.

The Lenovo Mirage Solo is a stand-alone headset device, which is advantageous in a clinical setting. The device uses Google’s ‘WorldSense’ technology which allows for inside-out tracking without the need for external sensors.

For future coverage on how VR is used in healthcare and medicine, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Vifor Pharma Wins Award for Augmented Reality System

The Pharma 4.0 Awards was created to recognise outstanding innovation and implementation of manufacturing systems in the pharmaceutical industry. This year’s award has gone to Vifor Pharma Group and its partner Goodly Innovations for the creation of a team-based augmented reality (AR) system.

The AR system was created in order to improve efficiency in the pharmaceutical manufacturing and packaging process. These processes are known to be complex, and the operators need to run through many detailed checklists to ensure no errors occur. The implementation of AR means that operators have detailed instructions for each step in the process.

By using AR, workflows can be adapted to real-life operations and operators can tick off each task as it is completed, and by using AR smart-glasses, operators hands can be free to complete other tasks.

“Applying augmented reality in our operations allowed us to improve the changeover process and increase productivity by up to 50% at our packaging plant,” said Dr. Benno Bischof, Head of Product Group, Technical Operations, in St. Gallen. “We have clearly demonstrated the potential of augmented reality by using it to create a dynamic teamwork system, unprecedented in our industry. This is the kind of innovative technology that we strive to use to improve our operations.”

“We set out to reduce the format change time by 30%, which at the time of our first prototype seemed like a bold objective. Now that we have real-life data from multiple installations, we are blown away by the results. Improving overall equipment effectiveness by 15 percentage points exceeded our expectations. It was also amazing to see error rates drop to virtually zero or on-boarding times become vastly accelerated,” said Robert Hoffmeister, CEO of Goodly Innovations. “We are very grateful for the trust and constructive feedback we got from the supportive teams at Vifor Pharma during this important early phase. Now we are just as excited to see the interest in OptiworX grow so rapidly in the industry.”

For future coverage of new and innovative uses of AR technology, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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VRHealth Working With Oculus For Health and Wellness Solutions

As the potential for virtual reality (VR) use in healthcare has become apparent, a number of companies have been formed with the aim of exploring this developing technology. One of these is VRHealth, a company which provides specialised VR technology solutions and data analysis for healthcare. VRHealth have announced that it is working with Oculus to develop new health and wellness solutions using Oculus VR technology.

VRHealth will be using both Oculus Go and Oculus Rift to provide VR technology solutions for various areas in healthcare, including pain management for cancer patients during chemotherapy or alleviating patient anxiety before and after surgery.

The aim of VRHealth is to provide non-invasive medical tools, which use technology such as artificial intelligence (AI) and cloud computing algorithms to provide valuable data analytics. VRHealth has provided its tools to various medical facilities and hospitals, and has reported positive results from places such as Stanford Sports Medicine, Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, Hoag Hospital Network, and Mass General Hospital’s Sports Medicine Center.

“Virtual reality has the power to ease the pain of chemotherapy treatment, create a seamless environment for physical therapy exercises, and train children with ADHD to focus their attention,” VRHealth CEO Eran Orr says. “It used to be that when people thought of virtual reality – entertainment and games were the first application that came to mind but we see that applying the effects of VR to the healthcare industry has the potential to improve many lives and aid doctors in providing personalized and comfortable experiences for their patients.”

Data collected from patients is updated in real-time, allowing medical professionals to quickly adapt a patient’s treatment plan. The company believes this technology has great potential benefits for both patients and medical professionals.

For future coverage on immersive technology in healthcare, keep checking back with VRFocus.

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Magic Leap Seeks To Improve Medical Sector In Partnership with Brainlab

As has previously been reported on VRFocus, there are a number of application for virtual reality (VR) and mixed reality (MR) in the medical and healthcare sector. One of the more interesting areas involves the use of MR technology for medical imaging. Magic Leap are aiming to become involved in this area by partnering with German medical technology company Brainlab.

The partnership aims to allow surgeons and other clinicians visualise and access medical imaging data. Magic Leap and Brainlab will create an operating system that combines Brainlab’s data management, cloud computing, visualisation and data pre-processing with Magic Leap’s spatial computing and experiential platforms.

The first release will be for planning and simulation of medical procedures in an office setting, so that medical personnel can meet and discuss the interventional procedures. This will then be expanded upon to allow surgeons and other clinicians to combine virtual imaging with the physical environment of an operating room, radiotherapy treatment room, intensive care unit and radiology suite.

Magic Leap said on the official website regarding the partnership: “Advancements made in medical technology are quite possibly the most important advances that affect humans on a global scale. Whether this means new medication that fights rare diseases or a new surgical entry point that helps alleviate pain or downtime, medical professionals can almost unanimously agree that putting patients first is their ultimate priority. By helping patients better see and understand their diagnosis, and allowing doctors to explore details of the human body like never before, we hope to revolutionize how medicine is practiced.”

Magic Leap have recently begun roll-out of its first physical product, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition mixed reality headset, along with its accompanying computer pack. The firm have also secured several partnerships with leading companies and brands, including Sennheiser and European band Sigur Rós.

Magic Leap One Lightwear 2

For future coverage on Magic Leap and other upcoming VR, AR and MR projects, keep checking back with VRFocus.