From the operating room to virtual reality, here are 5 ways that people are using Leap Motion tech for medical and assistive applications.
- X-rays and MRIs play an essential role in operating rooms around the world.
- Problem: Sterility is essential in the OR. Surgeons can’t touch a computer mouse without risking cross-contamination.
- Solution: TedCas is developing a plug-and-play console to let surgeons navigate images – quickly, intuitively, and safely. The device is now in clinical trials.
- Hundreds of thousands of people use American Sign Language in their daily lives.
- Problem: From the home to the workplace and everywhere in between, deaf people face serious communication barriers.
- Solution: One of TIME Magazine’s Top 25 Inventions of 2014, MotionSavvy’s UNI is a two-way communication tool for the deaf using Leap Motion and speech technologies. Pre-orders start shipping this fall.
- Parkinson’s disease, Wilson’s disease, dystonia, and other diseases make everyday life difficult for millions of people.
- Problem: There aren’t many ways for patients and doctors to quickly and reliably track tremor progression over time.
- Solution: Developers and researchers have been experimenting with using Leap Motion technology to measure hand tremors, including a team at UCSF.
- Cross-eye and lazy eye happen when the human brain ignores input from the non-dominant eye.
- Problem: There aren’t many ways to retrain people’s brains beyond boring clinical exercises.
- Solution: A dash of gamification. Vivid Vision believes that VR and motion controls can trick the player’s brain into strengthening their weaker eye. Their technology is now rolling out to eye clinics.
- After a stroke or other crippling illness, patients have a long road to restoring normal function to their hands.
- Problem: Rehab exercises can feel unrewarding and repetitive. Patients often need to stay at large facilities because the technologies they need are expensive and difficult to set up.
- Solution: The Burke Medical Research Institute, Ten Ton Raygun, and others have designed experimental games for stroke patients using Leap Motion technology.
Further Reading and Sources
- New Stroke Therapy Uses Motion Sensor Video Game to Help Rehabilitation
- Tracking Hand Tremors with Leap Motion
- MotionSavvy: Two-Way Communication Tool for the Deaf
- Vivid Vision for Amblyopia and Strabismus
- Ten Ton Raygun’s Visual Touch Therapy
- Touchless Blue Sky Plan for Dentists
- TedCas Strides Toward the Next-Gen Operating Room
- More Healthcare Solutions from Leap Motion