‘Mixed reality’ could better train responders to treat overdoses

(NewsNation) — A new project at an Illinois health care system hopes to help give medical professionals and ordinary citizens realistic crisis training to respond to drug overdoses by utilizing what’s called “mixed reality” technology.

The new project — currently being developed by staff at OSF Healthcare and researchers at several Illinois universities — aims to help train responders how to administer life-saving medication in a chaotic emergency setting that may be difficult to replicate offline.

Unlike virtual reality, where users use headsets to immerse themselves in fully-created digital worlds, mixed reality combines digital imagery with the real world in front of a user’s eyes.

The researchers plan to develop a virtual program that can be deployed through headsets to train Americans how to respond to someone who is overdosing by administering naloxone (which is often sold as the nasal spray Narcan).

Right now, training for these sorts of medical interventions is often done with objects like mannequins. The mixed reality technology will let users bypass the expense that might be involved in that.

“You don’t have to ship a mannequin,” said assistant professor in Creative Technologies at Illinois State University Roy Magnuson, who is involved with the project. “You don’t have to buy one — [they] can be extremely expensive.”

The researchers plan on developing the technology for Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro headset. The grant funding they’ll be using to develop a prototype begins in January, and they hope to create some form of product by the spring to do trials.

Magnuson conceded that there may be drawbacks to using mixed reality training that they discover once people start using the technology, including the fact that users may not necessarily physically feel the experience.

“You have to go touch a mannequin really to get a sense of what this is,” he said.

Matt Kase, a graduate student at Illinois State University who is involved with the project, also pointed out that some users would be comfortable using this technology while others wouldn’t.

“If you’ve ever tried to give a virtual reality headset to your parents or someone older it can be intimidating to use the technology,” he said.

But OSF Design Lab Director Scott Barrows, who is working on the project, said that they plan to work closely with the public to design the technology in a way that makes it accessible.

“We’ll be going into the communities, seeing how they relate to this, do they take to it, how can we design that experience better to kind of bridge that gap from this awesome technology to someone who doesn’t know how to use a mobile phone very well or maybe doesn’t even have access.”