Medical Breakthru with Virtual Reality
Swiss Scientists Use Virtual Reality to Help Amputees Feel Prosthetics as Part of their Body Scientists at Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) combined virtual reality with artificial tactile sensation to help two amputees feel their prosthetic hand as part of their body. They also demonstrated that the phantom limb actually grows into the prosthetic hand. Mind-Body-VR Connections The basis of this breakthrough approach is how the brain identifies what belongs to its own body. Their breakthrough was combining two senses - sight and touch. According to the lead scientist Giulio Rognini of EPFL: "We showed exactly how vision and touch can be combined to trick the amputee's brain into feeling what it sees" thru VR. Portable Therapy This process is portable and could be turned into therapy to help patients embody their prosthetic limbs permanently. It's a case of VR providing life enhancing feeling and experience.