A trip of a lifetime. Boston Children’s Hospital are testing virtual reality that can give people a 3D tour of their own digestive tract.
If you have bowel or colon disease, understanding exactly what’s wrong and how it will be fixed can be hard. But doctors using the new system, called HealthVoyager GI, will be able to show you directly. After performing procedures that inspect part of the digestive tract, such as a colonoscopy, the recordings are used to recreate a true-to-life version of the person’s insides.
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Using a VR headset, people can then walk around their internal tubes guided by their doctor. Doctors can point out where things have gone awry and potential treatments.
“We hypothesise that the more children and their families can visualize and understand their disease, the more likely they may be to communicate when they have a particular symptom and adhere to their therapies,” says Michael Docktor, MD, at Boston Children’s Innovation and Digital Health Accelerator.
The system is currently being trialed as part of a clinical study to establish whether it is helpful to people and their families.
“We are beginning to see VR and AR increasingly used in healthcare from optimising surgery during planning to preparing patients, both paediatric and adult, for the hospital environment,” says Manish Chand, Senior Lecturer in Surgery and Consultant Colorectal Surgeon, University College London.
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