Research and application of a teaching platform for combined spinal-epidural anesthesia based on virtual reality and haptic feedback technology

BACKGROUND: Intraspinal anesthesia poses significant teaching challenges and inadequate teaching resources, which ultimately limit students’ opportunities for practice. To address this issue, we aimed to develop a virtual platform for combined spinal-epidural anesthesia that merges virtual reality technology with haptic feedback technology, while assessing its educational impact and learning outcomes. METHODS: We utilized MIMICS, 3Ds MAX, and UNITY 3D software to perform 3D reconstruction based on lumbar CT/MRI data from a standard male volunteer. The haptic coefficients were configured on each layer by 20 experienced anesthesiologists in accordance with the Geomagic Touch X force feedback device. A total of 20 anesthesiology interns completed 30 virtual puncture training sessions. Two experienced anesthetists evaluated the efficacy of the platform and the level of mastery achieved using the Global Rating Scale (GRS) and a Checklist score, respectively. Finally, a questionnaire survey was conducted to gather feedback on the virtual platform. RESULTS: After the 10th session, the puncture time stabilized at 2.4 min. As the number of sessions increased, the Global Rating Scale (GRS) score stabilized by the 8th session, and the Checklist scores tended to stabilize by the 10th session. Results from questionnaires indicated that over half of the anesthesiology interns (70%) believed that the platform, which exhibited strong repeatability, improved their anatomical recognition and provided a strong sense of breakthrough in identifying the ligamentum flavum. The majority of them (80%) expressed satisfaction with the virtual platform. CONCLUSIONS: The platform effectively facilitated the acquisition of basic and accurate puncture skills on a virtual patient. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12909-023-04758-4.