A Network-Based Virtual Reality Simulation Training Approach for Orthopedic Surgery

Abstract

The focus of this article is on the adoption of immersive and haptic simulators for training of medical residents in a surgical process called Less Invasive Stabilization System (LISS) plating surgery . LISS surgery is an orthopedic surgical procedure to treat fractures of the femur bone. Development of such simulators is a complex task which involves multiple systems, technologies, and human experts. Emerging Next Generation Internet technologies were used to develop the standalone on-line haptic-based simulator accessible to the students 24/7. A standalone immersive surgical simulator was also developed using HTC Vive. Expert surgeons played an important role in developing the simulator system; use cases of the target surgical processes were built using a modeling language called the engineering Enterprise Modeling Language (eEML) . A detailed study presenting the comparison between the haptic-based simulator and the immersive simulator has been also presented. The outcomes of this study underscore the potential of using such simulators in surgical training.

A review of computer‐assisted orthopaedic surgery systems

“…Some systems 59,60 are more suitable for medical students to learn and understand basic surgery skills, improving the learning experience of medical students in regard to orthopaedic surgery processes. Other systems 33,34,48,49,52‐55,61 can only train users, improve users' surgery skills, and shorten users' learning curves but cannot distinguish novices and experts. A number of systems 44,48,49,52‐54,58 have tactile systems, which can provide tactile feedback to users.…”

“…In addition, the haptic‐based simulator and immersion training simulator were compared. According to the investigation of 22 medical students and 10 residents, the training effect of the immersion training simulator was better than that of the tactile training simulator 54 …”

https://researchopenworld.com/virtual-reality-based-training-environments-for-orthopedic-surgery/#

“…Survey based comparisons [6,7,14,40] was conducted involving haptic based, IVR and MR based simulators; the criteria considered included:…”

“…Haptic based simulators built for training medical residents in LISS plating surgery and Condylar plating surgery has been demonstrated to improve understanding of these surgical procedures [7,8,14,41,42]. These simulators have been developed using Geomagic Touch™ haptic device which provides a haptic interface allowing users to touch, grasp and interact with various surgical tools during the training activities.…”

“…Using such framework (figure 7), residents from different locations can interact with an expert surgeon who can guide them or supervise their virtual training activities in a collaborative manner. Initial results on the performance of the network as well as assessment of learning/training [8,14,39,40,43] have underscored the potential of such distributed approaches based on IoMedT principles.…”