Microsoft Kinect used to Teach Aneurysm Surgical procedures - A Gross Anatomy Future controlled by Voice and Gestures

It looks as if CNET Writer Elizabeth Armstrong Moore is on to something with regards to the usage of the Microsoft Kinect in the field of Medicine as stated in the article “Surgeons use Kinect tech during aneurysm procedures”, published June 1, 2012 3:05 PM PDT by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, CNET News. But more interestingly to Medical Science Students, the usages being discovered for the Microsoft Kinect means that they can learn surgical procedures on the cheap!

This as the Microsoft Kinect Game System with the right software can be used to study:

1.      Massage Therapy

2.      Anatomy

3.      Surgical Procedures

All without the need to buy expensive books or even go to anatomy class (at your peril of course!!). The interest in the Microsoft Kinect is somewhat similar to the current ongoing research into the Health Benefit of Gaming Consoles such as the Nintendo Wii as stated in the article “Body versus mind: Gaming and your health”, Published  March 5, 2012 By Jeff Hughes, DigitalTrends.

Last year on April Fools 2011AD Google tried to prank everyone with their spoof product “Introducing Gmail Motion” that was supposed to make accessing you email via PrimeSense’s 3D Motion Capture Technology aka Microsoft Kinect a snap.

As you would have realized if you had read my blog article entitled “Gmail Motion is SLOOW & other April Fool's Jokes - Armstrong's Firefly” University of South California PhD candidate Evan Suma turned it around on Google and breathed life into their prank.

He modified his Research Group’s software dubbed FAAST (for Flexible Action and Articulated Skeleton Toolkit) into SLOOW (Software Library Optimizing Obligatory Waving). SLOOW is a software workaround using the Microsoft Kinect that effectively allows patient recuperating from illness to manipulate computers and other things around them.

This using Microsoft Kinect’s 3D Motion Capture Technology as described in the article “Google prank + Kinect hack -= useful Health tech”, published April 4, 2011 3:47 PM PDT by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, CNET News - Health Tech.

Since then other hacks have abounded pertaining to the Medical field, with the teaching of Anatomy coming from a team out of the Technical University of Munich in Germany readily to mind as described in the article “Use Kinect to teach anatomy? It's a 'Mirracle'!”, published January 31, 2012 11:42 AM PST by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, CNET News.

Not to mention New York University grad student Jason Stephens use of a video projector, Kinect, and OpenKinect Libraries programming tools to script a program to observe the effects of massage on the body as stated in the article “Kinect hack allows for 'intelligent healing' massage”, published June 9, 2011 12:21 PM PD by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, CNET News.

A demonstration of a practical benefit of the 3D Motion Capture Technology that is Microsoft Kinect as described in my blog article entitled “Internet, Apple iTV and Cable - Pirates of the Caribbean”. Microsoft has however been taking its Kinect more seriously and has been dabbling with the idea of licensing its Kinect peripheral for general use on PC.

Microsoft has been collaborating with surgeons in London on using the 3D Motion Capture Technology on Aneurism Procedures as stated in the article “Surgeons use Kinect tech during aneurysm procedures”, published June 1, 2012 3:05 PM PDT by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore, CNET News.

The advantages are the same as PhD Evan Suma SLOOW hack:

1.      Reduced reliance on Surgical Assistants when I come to accessing critical information from computer, traditionally tactile devices, during an operation

2.      Surgeons can keep their hands on their work with and manipulate display data on computers i.e. CAT Scans, ECG Readings, Patient History thereby maintaining a sterile work environment

As Tom Carrell, senior lecturer at King's College London and a vascular surgeon, expresses it in a new release, quote: “Touchless interaction means there is no compromise in the sterility of the operating field or in patient safety”.

With future collaborations planned between Microsoft Research and King's College London, Lancaster University on vascular patients at St. Thomas' Hospital an on neurosurgery at Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge, the dream of hands-free manipulation of images during surgical operations is moving from Science Fiction to reality.

It also makes Gross Anatomy (1989) Classes and the teaching of other Medical Sciences courses that much more easily to understand when it’s done using a Gaming System that is still the hottest selling Gaming peripheral on the market as stated in my blog article entitled “Nintendo Wii vs Microsoft Kinect - War of the Worlds in Jodine Spark's BattleField” and the article “10 million a magic number for Microsoft's Kinect”, published March 9, 2011 12:09 PM PST by Don Reisinger, The Digital Home - CNET News.

Combined with Apple’s Siri, Microsoft Kinect beckons us to enter a remoteless Surgical future controlled by our Voice and body movements as prognosticated in my Geezam blog article entitled “Siri and Kinect: Heralds of a coming world free of Remote Controls”.