Mixed reality tool for training on pressure immobilization treatment of snake bite envenomation

Snakebite, one of the most common and catastrophic environmental sicknesses, occurs due to the ignorance of its importance toward public health. The rich protein and peptide toxin nature of snake venom makes snake bite envenomation clinically challenging and a scientifically attractive issue. In most cases, the severity of snake bite envenomation mainly depends on the quality of first aid or snake bite management measure given to the victim prior to hospital treatment. In countries with field management strategies (such as pressure immobilization technique (PIT)), including Australia, the number of fatalities due to snake bites is considerably less compared with those in other countries without such precautionary measures. PIT involves the wrapping of a bandage or a crepe over the bitten area with a standard pressure of 55--70 and 40--70 mm Hg for lower and upper extremities, respectively. This technique delays the absorption rate or venom spread inside the body. However, the PIT displays a noticeable failure rate due to its sensitivity toward the pressure range that must be maintained when gripping the bandage around the bitten area. Off-the-shelf bandages with visual markers aid in the process of training on PIT. Despite the visual markers on the bandage, human interpretation of these markers differs, which causes discrepancies in applying correct pressure. In this paper, a mixed reality-based virtual reality (VR) training tool for PIT training is proposed. The VR application assists in training individuals to self-validate the correctness of pressure range applied to the bandage. The application provides a passive haptic response and a visual feedback on an augmented live stream of the camera to indicate whether the pressure is within the range. Visual feedback is obtained using a feature extraction technique, which adds novelty to the proposed research. Feedback suggests that the VR-based training tool will assist individuals in obtaining real-time feedback on the correctness of the bandage pressure and further understand the process of PIT.