Enhance the Quality of VR based CPR Training by improving the Realism and Variability of the Simulator

Abstract

Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) is an emergency procedure carried out by giving chest compression on an unconscious man with irregular or no breathing to preserve brain functionality before identified as clinically dead. Ability to provide quality and uninterrupted chest compression contributes greatly to the survival of the patients. Therefore CPR is a compulsory skill in basic life support which needs to be acquired by any medical professional involved in emergency medicine. Traditionally CPR training is carried out by using a mechanical manikin. However, the manikin based training does not enable the user to be immersed in a real life emergency situation nor provide a dynamic training experience. As a solution to these identified problems, state of the art high tech manikin are being produced at present. Although such solutions represent attractive options, they are not affordable to public funded health systems such as here in Sri Lanka. Hence, in order to harness the goodness of advanced simulation based training to developing economics such as Sri Lanka a rudimentary effort was taken to develop a low cost Virtual Reality (VR) based simulation using commercial off the shelf (COTS) products in the project "VR for CPR". Due to the successful completion of previous project, this project attempts to look into the possibility of replacing the manikin in the current setup and increase the realism and the variability of the framework.