ROCHESTER, Minn. — For people with severe arthritis pain in the knee joints, knee replacement is a viable option to improve their quality of life. Orthopedic surgeons now have a new tool for knee replacement: augmented reality.
With augmented reality technology, a surgeon views data with special smart glasses or a helmet-based visor while maintaining the view of the surgical site. Virtual reality headsets block out users' vision and give them the sense that they are elsewhere. In that way, augmented reality differs from virtual reality.
"Think of a fighter pilot in a jet who has a visor over their eyes that displays electronic data laid over what they're seeing in the real world," says Michael Taunton, M.D., a Mayo Clinic orthopedic surgeon specializing in hip and knee replacement. "This is not the virtual reality your kids use when playing video games with their eyes covered."
