A serious accident inspired a biomedical engineer to build a VR rehab company. Things really took off when she tapped into 5G speeds.
Isabel Van De Keere
- Isabel Van De Keere had a serious spinal injury that left her with a long road to recovery.
- As a biomedical engineer, she wanted to build a better, more fun, and motivating rehab system.
- She founded Immersive Rehab, a digital-therapeutics company. Accessing 5G was a game-changer.
- This article is part of "5G Playbook," a series exploring one of our generation's most important tech innovations.
In 2010, Isabel Van De Keere's life changed completely. While at work, a steel light fixture fell on her — a severe accident that resulted in a cervical-spine injury and vertigo. Her long recovery and traditional rehabilitation left her frustrated. Despite the good intentions of the therapists helping, she said the process was repetitive, boring, and demotivating.
"When I recovered and got back to work, I thought there had to be a way to improve this for people," Van De Keere told Insider.
Van De Keere, a biomedical engineer, moved to London five years after the accident and became immersed in the city's digital-healthcare scene. She realized that technology could enhance access to rehabilitation and make it more appealing — an underrated quality that may lead to better health outcomes. In September 2016, Van De Keere founded Immersive Rehab, a social-enterprise startup.
VR therapeutics show promise
Van De Keere and her team create interactive-treatment environments and games that patients experience in virtual reality. In one exercise, a VR headset transports the user to a jazzy bar setting where they are the pianist. As they follow a sequence, each key lights up when struck correctly; it's a cognitive and fine-motor-skills exercise.
Immersive Rehab
Immersive Rehab's digital therapeutics focus on neurorehabilitation and are particularly helpful for upper-limb rehabilitation and balance training, Van de Keere said. They've primarily worked with individuals with multiple sclerosis or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and those recovering from a stroke or a spinal-cord injury. Early research published by partnering clinical teams suggests the VR that Immersive Rehab offers is a promising tool for enhancing motor function and neurocognitive skills; further clinical-validation trials are underway.
Some research suggests that virtual-reality interventions can facilitate neuroplasticity, the brain's ability to change and adapt. This can help individuals control and coordinate their muscle movements.
Accessing 5G speeds was a game changer for Immersive Rehab
For an optimal experience with this type of tool, there should be no latency issues. Choppy images can result in motion sickness and disrupt treatment, Van De Keere said. She said she's experienced "limitations with 4G networks, especially in terms of data transmission and streaming."
This is why Van De Keere and her team have started experimenting with 5G technology, primarily in labs with 5G hubs; the hospitals that Immersive Rehab partners with often don't have 5G coverage.
In telecommunications, 5G is the fifth generation of cellular networks and is estimated to be up to 100 times faster than 4G. The connectivity that 5G facilitates is considered more stable and secure than earlier iterations. So far, Immersive Rehab's experiments suggest 5G can enable fewer delays and more reliable data transmission.
"In an ideal world, there would be 5G coverage everywhere," Van De Keere said. "This would be an incredible help because it's much quicker and more reliable. It's also much faster."
Immersive Rehab
Another reason Van De Keere said that the potential of expanded 5G coverage excites her is that she wants to bring this technology to people in remote places. For now, her team primarily works on-site at partner hospitals in the United Kingdom, Germany, and the United States. Bringing these therapeutics into patients' homes could circumnavigate one of the issues Van De Keere has observed with most rehabilitation programs: the small window of time in which patients have access to those programs.
"There are also usually long waiting times to access specialized rehab clinics, which causes people to lose very precious recovery time," Van De Keere said. "This is both from a mental and physical perspective."
Working with clinicians and patients makes the tech more effective
Van De Keere said that Immersive Rehab has been "the best and hardest journey." She said what she's valued most in the seven years since launch is the openness of clinicians, therapists, and patients; their time and willingness to try these tools have been a great gift.
"We are creating these tools for them, but we can be in a room and just develop, develop, develop and it doesn't really matter if they are never used," she said. "Because of their willingness to help us and teach us about what they do and need, we've been able to progress."
What comes next partly depends on how other technological elements evolve, Van De Keere said. Immersive Rehab utilizes off-the-shelf technology including VR headsets, laptops, and external motion-tracking sensors. She said she's already seen incredible growth in headset innovation since Immersive Rehab launched. She added that it's exciting to imagine what comes next — including the good that could come from expanded 5G coverage.
Contributer : Business Insider https://ift.tt/lFY9SAP
Reviewed by mimisabreena
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Tuesday, July 18, 2023
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