Pierre Boulanger

By Pierre Boulanger, William Mott, Stephanie Schaeffer, Peter W. Wood, Raj Padwal and Paolo Raggi

Exercise-based cardiac rehabilitation (exCR) is a key element of a multi-disciplinary cardiac rehabilitation program towards the care of patients with acute or chronic cardiac disease. Many studies have shown that patient’s adherence to these programs is low despite evidence that such programs can improve outcomes and critical cardiac event reduction. New strategies to improve adherence to exCR programs are now being tested using non-hospital solutions that relies on VR gaming technologies. This paper presents such a system called MedBike which allows patients to perform an exCR program at home while being monitored in real-time by a remote clinician. The paper describes the technical aspects of the system, its pros and cons, various gamification strategies, and a recent usability study.

Part of the book: Assistive and Rehabilitation Engineering

By Pierre Boulanger, Thea Wang and Mahdi Rahmani Hanzaki

This chapter explores how the realism of haptic perception in virtual reality can be significantly enhanced with the help of the concept of haptic proxy. In haptic proxy, the position and orientation of physical objects are tracked in real-time and registered to their virtual counterparts. A compelling sense of tactile immersion can be achieved if the tracked objects have similar tactile properties to their virtual counterpart. A haptic proxy prototype was developed, and a pilot study was conducted to determine if the haptic proxy system is more credible than standard virtual reality. To test our prototype, we performed simple medical tasks such as moving a patient’s arm and aiming a syringe to specific locations. Our results suggest that simulation using a haptic proxy system is more believable and user-friendly and can be extended to developing new generations of open surgery simulators.

Part of the book: Modern Development and Challenges in Virtual Reality

By Pierre Boulanger

A patient’s internal anatomy can be difficult to visualize when viewed on a monitor, head-mounted display, or even when looking at an actual patient. Combining medical images (CT, MRI, US, PET) with a physical model helps recover missing anatomical context and improves situational awareness. This chapter describes an augmented reality system capable of projecting medical image information directly onto curved targets such as the human body or a mannequin. The motion of the targets and the projector are tracked using a motion capture system so that the images are adjusted in real time to match the anatomy changes in position and orientation. The augmented information can be displayed using volume rendering for realistic visualization of the internal anatomy and 3D models from segmented images. Calibration is performed on the projector and the tracking system to obtain an accurate, common coordinate system and correct visual distortions created by the fact that the projected screen (human body) is no longer a plane. The system is easily extendable to other display technology and has many potential applications, including medical education, surgical planning, and laparoscopic surgery.

Part of the book: Applications of Augmented Reality

By Pierre Boulanger

This chapter describes VR-Surgical, an immersive collaborative virtual reality environment designed to assist medical teams to perform surgical planning. This prototype is designed to improve surgical planning between medical teams in both remote and co-located settings. The system makes it possible to define, adjust, and annotate virtual resections of organs’ 3D surfaces and 2D image slices from MRI and CT scans. By integrating Insight Toolkit (ITK) core capabilities with VR-Surgical, it is possible to process, register, and visualize various imaging modalities during the meeting. This chapter discusses the fundamental components of a prototype system and a small pilot usability study conducted by two teams of radiologists and surgeons. It shows significant improvements in time and accuracy of the surgical planning process.

Part of the book: Navigating the Metaverse - A Comprehensive Guide to the Future of Digital Interaction [Working title]