Brace For Impact | Robyn Stanco | TEDxWesternNewEnglandU

my friends and I you know all of our classmates we had we had a field trip and you know any any kids joy to get out of the classroom essentially and have a field day um so this this local park that we went to was uh Putnam Park I'm not sure if any of you are familiar it's in Reading Connecticut we did a lot of outdoor

activities like walking hiking and we played some games it was a lot of really fun stuff and I was really excited to be away from my desk as a as a young child as a young girl with cerebral palsy I always had some mild difficulty in keeping up with others when it came to physical activity but I always enjoyed it nonetheless um I was keeping up

fairly well with most of these activities however there came a point when we were doing a hike and this hike was at the top of the hill of top of the hill and at the top of the hill there was a river picture just you know a fairly Barren Forest wet from last night the rain and you know not it was fall so there wasn't a

ease Traverse each of these Stepping Stones no one had any any blunders or problems and I figured that I would go last why not like Savor the moment and you know appreciate everyone walking across and it was my turn to go everyone had crossed and I made it to about the Third Rock and I slipped and fell completely on my back into the flowing river and

I was soaked and as I stare up in the sky contemplating all of my decisions up till now every single life decision my thermos and and my lunch was making its way towards no return down the river thankfully my friend Candace she she ran and grabbed it um and this is all happening while I'm just laying in the river um and I look up and and

all of my classmates are jaw dropped either laughing stunned or maybe they even feel a little bit bad for me um but I was quickly quickly helped by the the hiking instructor and and back on my feet my clothes were soaked my young ego was bruised and my reputation as a sixth grader was permanently scarred um and although I was not physically hurt you know and

I managed throughout the day I learned to face to face the adversities that come along with living with the physical disability and that necessarily I don't have all of the mobility and balance that that a person with normal Mobility has an adult these mobility issues have taken somewhat of a toll on me although cerebral palsy itself is not degenerative there are coexisting conditions such as scoliosis

and Ankylosing Spondylitis which are degenerative um whether it be in arthritis flare-up in the fall or a propensity to a new injury cerebral palsy patients often they actually have a larger propensity for injuries or just the general you know wear and tear of the joints I really struggle with maintaining pain-free days often those with disabilities resort to care such as physical therapy medication and even surgery

surgery is oftentimes like the end-all be-all you know medication and physical therapy can be a remediation but surgery often is kind of the thing that that can solve the issue for me as I knew physical therapy and exercise might not always be enough I've always relished and thought of the possibility of of surgery which can be extremely daunting and I've always just relished for a way

to make my life with disabilities just a little bit easier with a strong focus in software engineering I've been observing that every day rapid changes in technology and I've always hoped that there would be a better way to improve patient outcomes for those with disabilities and considering the technological advances that have been made today I believe that we can utilize Innovative virtual reality technology to improve

the lives of those with disabilities now this is a big claim but let me let me get into it for the past eight months I've had the pleasure of working with an Innovative company that has developed the leading virtual reality surgical training and assessment platform named Oso VR accessible on the Quest 2 by meta Oso VR provides a revolutionary clinically validated virtual operating room where surgeons

medical trainees and Healthcare professionals can perform repeatable commonly used and even rare surgeries on not a cadaver or a live Human but rather a virtual patient also VR provides numerous procedures to choose from all equipped with step-by-step interactions through the procedure and even analytics on how you're doing with with any given procedure this feature is extremely valuable to surgeons because traditional surgeon traditional surgery they usually

have to wait quite a while for cadavers or for a person to to go undergo the surgery and this can take quite a lot of time with VR things are repeatable as as any amount of times that you want um and you can do it in the comfort of your own home as part of my contributions I also I work as a full stack engineer developing

the web applications that are actually embedded in the VR experience and so I that provides a lot of analytics on the different procedures that surgeons and medical and medical students run cerebral palsy patients like me and those who have an even more severe case of the condition they often go through surgical procedures effectively titled total knee arthroplasties or total shoulder arthroplasties now arthroplasty is a big

word so give me a second it's just it just means a simple joint reconstruction or a repair of the joint so when you hear me say arthroplasty simply think of that these procedures are generally needed due to the wear and tear on the joints that come from arthritis and scoliosis and as well as for lack of mobility and muscle muscular imbalance a lot of the times

joints will need to be repaired for that furthermore there is actually major overlap with the conditions um I previously mentioned with ankylosing and spondylitis AK losing Spondylitis is an inflammatory disease that affects the spine and scoliosis more more known is just like a misshapen spine scoliosis patients will actually have to go to an ankylosing spondylase patients have to often go through bilateral hip arthroplasty bilateral meaning

both sides and that's a that's a really extreme procedure similarly scoliosis patients need to go through sometimes we'll need to go through a rotator cuff repair if they've torn their rotator cuff yeah so the likelihood of me having to go undergo one of these procedures is actually extremely high my chiropractor essentially has told me that my L5 vertebrae is attached to my hip due to my

Ankylosing Spondylitis so my hips don't really move so I'm I'm hoping to correct that it's pretty nerve-wracking for me to have the idea of having to go through surgery I've never done that I've never gone through any firm formal surgery before although I had to wear a brace when I was a child I've never gone through any surgeries so how does this connect Oso VR and

virtual reality technology actually provides a few of these surgeries that I have that I've just mentioned as virtual modules that surgeons and trainees can participate in again a repeatable amount of times uh total knee replacement and rotator cuff modules are actually both readily available and are being used today in addition Justin barad the CEO of Oso VR who has worked with cerebral palsy patients closely he

really is trying to bring in more procedures that are focused for people with disabilities namely Botox injections funny enough Botox injections don't just have a cosmetic a cosmetic appeal they can provide a relaxing of the muscle so there's a less spasticity if you guys are familiar with TMJ or TMD if you guys have any jaw problems a lot of that is due to the spasticity of

the masseter muscle so Botox injections can actually really help cerebral palsy patients that have that spasticity um virtual reality technology has come in extremely long way and it's actually even clinically validated multiple peer review trials have occurred further supporting the positive impact of Oso vr's modules for their participants for one the journals of surgical education has conducted a few different studies on Oso vr's modules including

the partial knee arthroplasty that I've just mentioned and all all of the research conducted leaded to positive feedback furthermore a study done by UCLA's David Geffen School of Medicine had a measurable 230 percent increase in surgical Performance Based on based on traditional training so that that's that's huge 230 percent compared to traditional training is an extreme leap and it's measurable this isn't just Surgeon Simulator or

some gimmick this is this is really a validated a validated technology and more research is continually coming out to to support this fact however sometimes the adoption can be a little bit slow I'd like to hope that this discussion that I'm having would would have for more quick adoption from from all of you and that it's something that brings interest um since it is evident that

virtual reality can provide surgeons with the ability to repeatedly and statistically improve their craft I propose it is intrinsically helping patients with physical disabilities who often need certain surgeries provided that the that the surgery is available through a virtual module the surgeon can ensure that he or she has done the module of an utmost amount of times and is extremely ready to perform the surgery in

addition I believe it gives patients a heightened sense of security and faith in their surgical providers not only have their surgical providers gone through the standard doctoral credentials and education but now they're using this Cutting Edge training that allows them to even further improve their craft with a combination of both of these styles of training I believe that I suggest that we can provide better patient

outcomes for those with personal disabilities or for those with physical disabilities personally I feel it makes me more inclined to get a surgery myself if I do need one knowing that our surgeons had gone through both of these types of types of training it would be very it would ease my mind to know that um it also kind of gets me thinking back to the young

girl that fell in the river when she was in sixth grade and that maybe she'd take some solace in knowing that there would be some new technology that could possibly help her and you know not prevent her from falling but maybe help a hip that she broke if she fell um I'd also like to think that she takes some pride in knowing that she actually participated

in the advancement thank you [Applause]