Simulation has revolutionized product design and manufacturing across many industries including automotive, aerospace, and oil and gas exploration. The ability to develop new products and test different processes in a virtual environment allows us to first explore what could be without wasting precious investments of time and money on ideas that may not succeed in the real world.
Simulation in the health and life sciences field seems a natural fit as today’s researchers strive to develop effective devices, drugs, and procedures for treating an ever-growing number of diseases. In response to this challenge, Dassault Systèmes’ Living Heart Project created the first-of-its-kind 3D realistic simulation of a human heart. This virtual model behaves and responds just like the real thing and even accounts for the complex fluid, electrical, and mechanical properties of the body’s most vital organ.
There’s no question that simulation and modeling capabilities will play a key role in transforming the treatment of cardiovascular disease one of the world’s most prolific killers however, they also provide a glimpse into a future of medicine that is highly personalized yet less invasive.
Connected & Personalized Healthcare
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As simulation technologies develop they will drive a paradigm shift that will make healthcare as personalized and tailored to our individual preferences as the apps on our phones. In the future, patients may be able to use their smartphones to send real-time health data directly to their electronic medical record, which doctors could access anytime, anywhere via the cloud and use it to build individualized treatment plans. Making it easier for patients to share information with their healthcare provider will mean medical data on a variety of diseases would become more readily available, and patients would have the means to communicate with doctors even when they are not in close proximity to quality, affordable medical care.
Meet My Digital Twin
“Digital twins” are exact digital replications of organs that can be used to make diagnoses and trial new treatments in a simulated environment before testing it on an actual patient. While digital twins have been used for years in engineering applications, applying this principle to medicine would allow doctors to virtually explore an organ’s behavior in order to increase the personalization of treatments and medications, make better data-driven care decisions, and even prevent medical complications before they occur.
VR Goes Mainstream
The LHP simulates the human heart in virtual reality, allowing users to fully immerse themselves in and examine a life-sized human heart. As VR technologies expand further into the healthcare community, doctors will be able to virtually explore the effects of new drugs and high-risk surgical procedures on simulated organs before real ones. In the future, the hope is that simulation will enable doctors to use MRI and EMR data to construct a model of an individual patient’s heart and explore it just by strapping on a VR headset.
There are still obstacles to overcome before simulation becomes a mainstream part of medicine; however, the Living Heart Project has proven that simulation of one of the human body’s most complex organs is possible. Advancements in high performance computing technologies will be a key enabler of the realistic simulation capabilities that are driving a future of medicine that is both more personal and less invasive, which will have tremendous benefits on the quality of life and patient care.
Date: June 07, 2016