Minhua Ma

Virtual, Augmented Reality and Serious Games for Healthcare 1

There is a tremendous interest among researchers for the development of virtual, augmented reality and games technologies due to their widespread applications in medicine and healthcare. To date the major applications of these technologies include medical simulation, telemedicine, medical and healthcare training, pain control, visualisation aid for surgery, rehabilitation in cases such as stroke, phobia and trauma therapies. Many recent studies have identified the benefits of using Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality or serious games in a variety of medical applications. This research volume on Virtual, Augmented Reality and Serious Games for Healthcare 1 offers an insightful introduction to the theories, development and applications of virtual, augmented reality and digital games technologies in medical and clinical settings and healthcare in general. It is divided into six sections: section one presents a selection of applications in medical education and healthcare management; Section two relates to the nursing training, health literacy and healthy behaviour; Section three presents the applications of Virtual Reality in neuropsychology; Section four includes a number of applications in motor rehabilitation; Section five aimed at therapeutic games for various diseases; and the final section presents the applications of Virtual Reality in healing and restoration. This book is directed to the healthcare professionals, scientists, researchers, professors and the students who wish to explore the applications of virtual, augmented reality and serious games in healthcare further.

A Review of Serious Games for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs)

This paper reviews 40 serious games designed for children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and these games/studies are classified into four categories; technology platform, computer graphics, gaming aspect and user interaction. Moreover, the paper discusses serious games designed for the improvement of communication skills and social behavior, social conversation, imaginative skills, sensory integration and learning accounts in ASD children. The children usually interact with these games by ordinary IO (input/output) e.g. keyboard and mouse or touchscreen tools. Previous researches show the effectiveness of playing serious games on mobiles or tablet devices in helping ASD children to express their feelings and improve the level of engagement with others. However, there are limitations in designing games for helping autistic children with sensory processing disorder (SPD), improving imaginative play, and teaching first aid. Further, there is not much research that addresses repetitive behavior in ASD children.

Real-time Medical Visualization of Human Head and Neck Anatomy and its Applications for Dental Training and Simulation

The Digital Design Studio and NHS Education Scotland have developed ultra-high definition real-time interactive 3D anatomy of the head and neck for dental teaching, training and simulation purposes. In this paper we present an established workflow using state-of-the-art 3D laser scanning technology and software for design and construction of medical data and describe the workflow practices and protocols in the head and neck anatomy project. Anatomical data was acquired through topographical laser scanning of a destructively dissected cadaver. Each stage of model development was clinically validated to produce a normalised human dataset which was transformed into a real-time environment capable of large-scale 3D stereoscopic display in medical teaching labs across Scotland, whilst also supporting single users with laptops and PC. Specific functionality supported within the 3D Head and Neck viewer includes anatomical labelling, guillotine tools and selection tools to expand specific local regions of anatomy. The software environment allows thorough and meaningful investigation to take place of all major and minor anatomical structures and systems whilst providing the user with the means to record sessions and individual scenes for learning and training purposes. The model and software have also been adapted to permit interactive haptic simulation of the injection of a local anaesthetic.

3D visualisation for education, diagnosis and treatment of lliotibial band syndrome

The evolution of medical imaging technologies and computer graphics is leading to dramatic improvements for medical training, diagnosis and treatment, and patient understanding. This paper discusses how volumetric visualization and 3D scanning can be integrated with cadaveric dissection to deliver benefits in the key areas of clinician-patient communication and medical education. The specific area of medical application is a prevalent musculoskeletal disorder-iliotibial (IT) band syndrome. By combining knowledge from cadaveric dissection and volumetric visualization, a virtual laboratory was created using the Unity 3D game engine, as an interactive education tool for use in various settings. The system is designed to improve the experience of clinicians who had commented that their earlier training would have been enhanced by key features of the system, including accurate three-dimensional models generated from computed tomography, high resolution cryosection images of the Visible Human dataset, and surface anatomy generated from a white light scan of an athlete. The finding from the virtual laboratory concept is that knowledge gained through dissection helps enhance the value of the model by incorporating more detail of the distal attachments of the IT band. Experienced clinicians who regularly treat IT band syndrome were excited by the potential of the model and keen to make suggestions for future enhancement.

Future Trends of Virtual, Augmented Reality, and Games for Health

Serious game is now a multi-billion dollar industry and is still growing steadily in many sectors. As a major subset of serious games, designing and developing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and serious games or adopting off-the-shelf games to support medical education, rehabilitation, or promote health has become a promising frontier in the healthcare sector since 2004, because games technology is inexpensive, widely available, fun and entertaining for people of all ages, with various health conditions and different sensory, motor, and cognitive capabilities. In this chapter, we provide the reader an overview of the book with a perspective of future trends of VR, AR simulation and serious games for healthcare.

Enheduanna – A Manifesto of Falling: first demonstration of a live brain-computer cinema performance with multi-brain BCI interaction for one performer and two audience members

ABSTRACT The new commercial-grade Electroencephalography (EEG)-based Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) have led to a phenomenal development of applications across health, entertainment and the arts, while an increasing interest in multi-brain interaction has emerged. In the arts, there is already a number of works that involve the interaction of more than one participants with the use of EEG-based BCIs. However, the field of live brain-computer cinema and mixed-media performances is rather new, compared to installations and music performances that involve multi-brain BCIs. In this context, we present the particular challenges involved. We discuss Enheduanna – A Manifesto of Falling, the first demonstration of a live brain-computer cinema performance that enables the real-time brain-activity interaction of one performer and two audience members; and we take a cognitive perspective on the implementation of a new passive multi-brain EEG-based BCI system to realise our creative concept. This article also presents the preliminary results and future work.

Efficacy of three-dimensional visualization in mobile apps for patient education regarding orthognathic surgery.

Sur-face is an interactive mobile app illustrating different orthognathic surgeries and their potential complications. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy of Sur-face by comparing two methods of delivering patient information on orthognathic surgeries and their related potential complications: a mobile app with interactive three-dimensional (3D) animations and a voice recording containing verbal instructions only. For each method, the participants acquired knowledge was assessed using a custom-designed questionnaire. Participants in the app group performed significantly better (P<0.0034) than those in the voice group and retained more knowledge, suggesting that interactive visualizations play a key role in improving understanding of the orthognathic surgical procedure and its associated complications. This study emphasizes the impact of 3D visualizations in delivering information regarding orthognathic surgery and highlights the advantage of delivering validated patient information through mobile apps.

Immersive Composition for Sensory Rehabilitation: 3D Visualisation, Surround Sound, and Synthesised Music to Provoke Catharsis and Healing

There is a wide range of sensory therapies using sound, music and visual stimuli. Some focus on soothing or distracting stimuli such as natural sounds or classical music as analgesic, while other approaches emphasize the active performance of producing music as therapy. This paper proposes an immersive multi-sensory Exposure Therapy for people suffering from anxiety disorders, based on a rich, detailed surround-soundscape. This soundscape is composed to include the users’ own idiosyncratic anxiety triggers as a form of habituation, and to provoke psychological catharsis, as a non-verbal, visceral and enveloping exposure. To accurately pinpoint the most effective sounds and to optimally compose the soundscape we will monitor the participants’ physiological responses such as electroencephalography, respiration, electromyography, and heart rate during exposure. We hypothesize that such physiologically optimized sensory landscapes will aid the development of future immersive therapies for various psychological conditions, Sound is a major trigger of anxiety, and auditory hypersensitivity is an extremely problematic symptom. Exposure to stress-inducing sounds can free anxiety sufferers from entrenched avoidance behaviors, teaching physiological coping strategies and encouraging resolution of the psychological issues agitated by the sound.

Constructionist learning in anatomy education: what anatomy students can learn through serious games

In this paper we describe the use of 3D games technology in human anatomy education based on our MSc in Medical Visualisation and Human Anatomy teaching practice, i.e. students design and develop serious games for anatomy education using the Unity 3D game engine. Students are engaged in this process not only as consumers of serious games, but as authors and creators. The benefits of this constructionist learning approach are discussed. Five domains of learning are identified, in terms of what anatomy students, tutors, and final users (players) can learn through serious games and their development process. We also justify the 3D engine selected for serious game development and discuss main obstacles and challenges to the use of this constructionist approach to teach non-computing students. Finally, we recommend that the serious game construction approach can be adopted in other academic disciplines in higher education.

The Ambience Table─A Serious Gaming Interface for Aiding Sound Design

Ambient sound plays a critical part in all media related to the moving image, video games, and live performance. It defines its place and time, temporalizes it to towards a future goal and is key in creating audience immersion and belief in what we see. The process of recording, manipulating or designing audio elements is usually handled by competent professionals. Can a different approach be had to the way we design sound ambiences and what relationship and role does ambient sound have to media such as film and games? Using object-oriented programming environment, Max/MSP, a low-cost serious gaming interface was designed and implemented – the Ambience Designer. This rids the process of its esoteric nature and together with an especially crafted tabletop interface allows amateurs to design and interact with the ambient sounds of birds, wind and traffic for home movies and indie games. The Ambience Designer removes the esoteric ways of audio design in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) and use intuitive user input that connect with our every day subjective experience of sound - such as distance, placement, and intensity - in place of parameters that only professionals could understand and use. Future developments include moving the Ambience Designer to a commercial multi touch table/tablet such as Microsoft Surface or Apple iPad which will enable us to utilise more intuitive, multi-touch gestures such as tap, scroll, pan, rotate, and pinch. The Ambience Designer was evaluated among working professionals, amateurs and the general public and initial findings were promising. During the survey, participants also suggested some future applications of the Ambience Designer, such as a creative and educational tool for children or people with special needs, for therapeutic purposes, to trigger memories in elderly, for digital storytelling and post-production sound dubbing for picture.