While Microsoft’s Kinect gesture-based technology has certainly been a hit with video gamers – the device “reads” your gestures and applies them to your avatar in the game – there are other industries that have recognized the benefit of the technology.
Surgeons are one group that raised considerable interest in new applications for Kinect, namely during surgeries. Once surgeons, anesthesiologists and their assistants are scrubbed in for surgery, they are prevented from touching any unnecessary objects in order to retain a sterile environment. For this reason, it becomes difficult to consult increasingly digitized patient records, diagnostic images, notes and other material in patient records.
With the Kinect technology, surgeons and other operating room personnel can interact with digital records using only gestures, which doesn’t compromise cleanliness rules in the OR.
“Kinect for Windows-based system has thrilled surgeons who have seen it and who believe it could help make surgery faster and more accurate,” wrote Microsoft recently in response to interest from physicians.
Kinect is actually a kind of specialized Web cam – a motion sensing input device that was developed by Microsoft to be used with both Windows-based PCs and the company’s Xbox 360 video game console. Since then, new areas of interest have arisen. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab has used the device in studies to help robots interact with people using human gestures. Researchers at UC Davis have used it to build a kind of three-dimensional video conferencing that offers a richer, more personal user experience.
But the healthcare applications remain some of the most compelling, and there are already third parties developing new solutions for the operating room.
According to MobiHealthNews, “One of the very first healthcare use cases attempted even before Microsoft opened up the Kinect SDK was to allow surgeons to access medical imagery like X-rays without scrubbing out or having to work through an assistant. With gesture-based controls, surgeons can not only interact with static medical imagery onscreen, but can even refer to a live-feed from a flouroscopy camera. A Canadian company called GestSure is already deploying the technology in a handful of hospitals.”
There are also healthcare applications in home-based and clinic-based physical therapy, diagnostic tests for coordination and movement, and home health monitoring. A research team from the University of Missouri is even working on a solution that could analyze the movements and gait of an elderly person to warn if that individual is at risk for a fall.
So while it has become a common sight in video gaming, we can likely expect to see the Kinect system – or at least something very like it – in far more settings in the near future.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
