So far, we’ve shown and discussed the wonderful applications and
advantages of AR in various industries.
However, today we would like to talk about some of the inherent risks of
this technology, and how they can be mitigated.
One of the fields AR can be useful is the healthcare industry. Among
other uses, AR can be a useful tool for doctors; the following video
demonstrates usage of AR to help explore and learn about various body organs:
If we take the next step in AR technology, it might be
used in actual procedures the medicine industry has
implemented AR to show alternative views of a patient from various imaging
sources. Images from X-Ray, ultrasound, endoscopies and other graphic
information that can be helpful in real-time are shown while a doctor is in a
surgical procedure. AR aids surgeons to be more accurate when doing their job.
AR is more advanced in neurosurgery (brain, spinal cord and peripheral nerves),
otolaryngology (ear, mouth and nose) and
maxillofacial (face and jaws) operations.
A disadvantage of using AR in medicine is that life and
health are at stake and the system can fail, since it has been proved that AR
has limitations regarding “high resolution, color depth,
luminance, contrast, field of view, and focus depth[1]”. If a doctor perceives
wrongly the information, when working with the patient, mistakes can be made
that could damage an organ and complicating an operation. AR can project images
inaccurate to reality since humans have rigid organs such as bones which
are more static and semi-rigid organs such as the liver, which are constantly
changing in shape (due to the blood irrigation and the body respiration), a
past endoscopy can show how the organ was, but in a medical procedure the
current organ’s state could have changed creating perception confusion to the
surgeon leading to surgical negative results[2]. Even if AR can be of an
advantage for surgery procedures, if the doctors make any surgical mistake,
both the doctor and hospital might incur in negligence liabilities. Legal
claims could be very costly (apart from the health at stake) for hospitals.
The good news is that people are always willing to improve technology:
institutions such as the Technische Universitat München have projects that are
targeted to improve and adapt the use of AR in the operation rooms and help the
doctors make a better utilization of this instrument as the end users[3]. Another way to mitigate the risk is that surgeons should always trust their senses and complement it with AR as a useful tool.
If you are more interested in AR used in surgeries, watch the following
video:
Augmented reality in operating rooms: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kifj0ZP4Mos
[1] Van
Krevelen, D.W.F and Poelman, R., “A Survey of Augmented Reality
Technologies, Applications and Limitations”, The International Journal of
Virtual Reality, 2010, 9(2):1-20, p. 14, URL: http://kjcomps.6te.net/upload/paper1%20.pdf.
[2]
Shuhaiber, Jeffrey Archer, “Augmented Reality in Surgery” JAMA Surgery,
February 1st, 2004, URL:
http://archsurg.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=396410.
[3] “Research
in Medical Augmented Reality”, Technische Universitat München , URL: http://campar.in.tum.de/Chair/ResearchIssueMedAR.
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