In case you happen to find some surgeons playing video games during their working hours, perhaps they are not just having fun but they are training to improve their laparoscopic skills. A recent study from “La Sapienza” University in Rome analyzed the effect of four weeks structured Nintendo® Wii™ training on laparoscopic performance and found out a significant improvement on a laparoscopy simulator.
Laparoscopic surgery, also known as “minimally invasive” surgery, is a surgical technique in which small incisions are made to enter into the abdomen. Specialized instruments and a camera, known as a laparoscope, are inserted through these incisions. The laparoscope transmits detailed images of the abdomen on dedicated monitors, therefore, during the operation, the laparoscope becomes a surgeon’s eye since the surgeon watches the images on the monitors to perform the procedure. Compared to open surgery, laparoscopy presents various technical difficulties such as limited motion range of instruments, loss of depth perception and transposition of 3D movements in a 2D view. As a result there is a growing interest in evaluating alternative forms of appropriate training, even outside the operating room.
The new study from Giannotti et al. has been carried out on 42 post-graduate I-II year residents in General, Vascular and Endoscopic Surgery. All participants were initially tested on a laparoscopic simulator and then randomly assigned to one of two groups. After four weeks all residents underwent a second testing session on the laparoscopic simulator. Between the two sessions, subjects in group 1 (Control) were instructed not to play video-games while group 2 played Nintendo® Wii™ for one hour a day, five days a week, for four weeks, focusing on games with high demand for visual concentration and eye-hand coordination.Although both groups improved their performance from session 1 to session 2, the Wii group showed a significant improvement in both the basic laparoscopic skills and complete simulated procedures of cholecystectomy.
The authors concluded their study by stressing out that, although traditional training and laparoscopic simulators remain excellent tools for educational purposes, video game consoles could be used to complement surgical training for young surgeons as the economic impact of these consoles is significantly lower than traditional laparoscopic simulators.
Original article: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0057372
