Stories about: virtual reality

Virtual reality tool lets kids voyage through their own bodies

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HealthVoyager - stomach
Traditionally, doctors share the findings of invasive tests using printouts that are highly text-based and filled with medical jargon. Some may have static thumbnail illustrations, but all in all they’re not especially patient friendly.

Michael Docktor, MD, a pediatric gastroenterologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, believed that if kids could really “see” inside themselves, they would have a better understanding of their disease and be more engaged in their treatment.

He connected with Klick Health, a health marketing and commercialization agency that develops digital solutions. Together, they created an entertaining “virtual reality” educational experience. It allows the physician to easily recreate a patient’s actual endoscopic procedure, and, like the Magic School Bus, enables kids to virtually tour their own bodies.

Boston Children’s and Klick Health officially unveiled the iPhone-friendly VR tool, called HealthVoyagerTM, in New York today. …

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Can virtual reality headsets save vision in people with lazy eye?

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Luminopia amblyopia virtual reality
IDHA’s Matt Murphy tries out Luminopia’s VR headset with Dean Travers (photo: Greb Weintraub)

Three to five percent of the population has amblyopia, a.k.a. lazy eye, in which a healthy eye never “learns” to see because isn’t used. This usually happens because of a focusing problem or subtle misalignment of that eye. The brain learns to ignore input from that eye, and unless this is noticed early, it weakens and can slowly go blind.

“When I can diagnose amblyopia early enough, I can treat it with an eye patch or eye drops to block the ‘good’ eye,” says David Hunter, MD, PhD, chief of ophthalmology at Boston Children’s Hospital. “This gives the eye with amblyopia time to catch up.”

Unfortunately, eye patching doesn’t work well at older ages, and kids hate the socially stigmatizing patches, which often need to be worn for more than a year. As Dean Travers, cofounder of Luminopia, put it at Boston Children’s Hospital’s Innovators’ Showcase last week, “Being a pirate isn’t cool for very long.” …

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