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VR helps train nursing students and autistic people practise real-life skills

VR is now used to help improve the training of student nurses at university and younger people with autism practice real-life everyday skills.

3rd July 2024 about a 3 minute read
“You get a range of patients with different ages, conditions, ethnicities, genders and this really helped get a variety and become used to experiencing this before practice. It’s a different way to be assessed. I find academic writing hard as I’m dyslexic, so doing something online that’s interactive and using practical skills really allowed me to learn.” Ellie Mytton, second-year adult nursing student, University of Lincoln

Virtual reality (VR) software is being used to help improve the training of student nurses at the University of Lincoln.

The school of health and social care has introduced the simulation software for the assessment of students on the BSc in adult nursing course. The software, provided by Oxford Medical Simulation (OMS), simulates scenarios in which virtual characters express symptoms that relate to conditions taught in the students’ modules.

The students, who can log onto the platform at any point during a four-hour window on exam day, have to make decisions and treat the patients virtually.

One of the main benefits the students identified from using the OMS software is the ability to practise procedures at home as many times as they want before the day of the exam. They receive the same amount of face-to-face teaching as previous students, but with the added ability to now repeat tasks at home by logging into the software on their own devices and gaining personalised feedback on each task.

The introduction of OMS software into teaching and assessments was led by Michael Rowe, associate professor in digital innovation at the University of Lincoln. He said: “Integrating virtual simulation software into our health and social care curriculum represents an important step forward in preparing our students for real-world practice.

“This technology allows students to gain hands-on experience in a safe, controlled environment, enhancing their clinical decision-making skills and confidence before they enter actual healthcare settings.

“We’re excited about the potential of expanding our use of immersive technologies, including virtual reality, to create even more realistic and engaging learning experiences for our students, and see this as one of our first tentative steps in that direction.”

Students also responded positively to the introduction of the software. Ellie Mytton, a second-year adult nursing student, said: “You get a range of patients with different ages, conditions, ethnicities, genders and this really helped get a variety and become used to experiencing this before practice. It’s a different way to be assessed. I find academic writing hard as I’m dyslexic, so doing something online that’s interactive and using practical skills really allowed me to learn.”

Francesca Ollier, a second-year adult nursing student, also welcomed the VR assessment: “I believe the future will heavily include more technology within healthcare, so adding these tools within our nursing programme in our early years of training can only be seen as a positive approach in preparing us for our future careers.”

Using haptic gloves to practise motor skills

Lincoln is not the only institution to adopt VR technology. Students at the National Autistic Society – Sybil Elgar School are using innovative technology in their learning, to explore virtual worlds, practise life-enhancing skills and develop through play.

The school is piloting fully immersive and interactive VR headsets, controllers, and motion tracking haptic gloves, all of which help them experience real-world scenarios.

The headsets and controllers enable students to move and look around in all directions in a VR environment, while the Senso haptic feedback gloves work with a gaming platform. The gloves track precise finger movements and gestures, so the young people can control VR programmes and develop important motor skills for everyday tasks. Students control the games on a laptop screen, and are encouraged to move their hands in specific ways, such as opening and closing their index finger and thumb. The gloves particularly benefit students with hand challenges – a diagnosis of cerebral palsy, for example, which can make it difficult to spread fingers when playing the piano.

FCC Insight

It’s good to see virtual reality being used in such innovative ways. In the nursing context, not only does the VR software enable the students to be examined on practical skills, it gives students the opportunity to repeatedly practise those skills in a realistic context until they have mastered them. This is one of the major advantages of using VR software for healthcare training, as explored in our recent report on extended reality. The use of VR to help young people with autism practise real-world skills, including motor function, is particularly exciting, and could prove highly valuable if extended to other people with disabilities who have difficulty with performing everyday tasks.