Through the use of AI, VR and AR, the project aims to alleviate the consequences of transplants and help better manage the entire process.
Virtual Transplant Reality it is a project created by Spanish professionals to improve the quality of life and psychoemotional well-being of pediatric patients with liver transplantation and that of their families. 80% of pediatric liver transplants carried out in Spain are performed during the first year of the patient’s life or at ages between one and seven years.
“Virtual reality has become a great ally for health professionals and for all those who suffer from some type of pathology, by the great ability of immersion and realism that offers, question if it is more important when we speak of pediatric patients (between 0 and 18 years) where you will need more interaction with the environment to achieve greater benefits in the treatment by increasing their motivation,” he says Erika Guijarro, director of VRT.
The initiative, which will be implemented in the “Unit Transplant Pediatric” Hospital Universitario La Paz, will be developed jointly by Erika Pebble, a psychologist with experience in treatments with RV, and a consortium of organizations and institutions such as the Research Institute of the University Hospital of La Paz and the Association HePA (Spanish Association of Assistance to Children with Liver Diseases and Liver Transplant). U-tad and Jump Into Reality participate in its technological development.
The project consists of the creation of a technological platform that will incorporate and manage all experiences in virtual and augmented reality. Each experience will use different techniques such as gamification and narrative adapted to each problem, facilitating the training and adaptation of users to isolated and controlled environments. These experiences will be divided into three phases: prevention (to train children in stressful or traumatic situations), distraction (changing the focus of attention to better carry the different tests) and awareness (to promote adherence to treatment).
The objective is that VTR does not remain at the experimental level and that it can be extrapolated to other types of patients, chronic diseases and other hospitals inside and outside Spain.
