The University of Malta, with support from the Vodafone Malta Foundation by way of a €113,000 donation, are to continue work on the development of a virtual reality application named ‘MORPHEUS’. This application will help reduce pain without the use of medication for children undergoing painful, high-stress medical procedures.
The study also has support from Mater Dei and the Stanford Medical School, where part of the work done had been presented and received praise from such entities, which in turn encouraged them to give their official support.
Funding has been made available through the Research, Innovation & Development Trust (RIDT) of the University of Malta, a joint initiative between the University and the Government, with the objective of increasing the research activity in all areas of study at the University.
The team is made up of 5 individuals with multi-disciplinary experience – Prof. Alexei Dingli, Head of the Department of Artificial Intelligence, Prof. Vince Briffa from the Department of Digital Arts, Dr. Vanessa Camilleri, Mr. Dylan Seychell, and Mark Bugeja, who will be all working together with students to develop this app.
Addressing the conference, Dingli stressed the reality of the less than favourable state of mind children might be in before, during, and even after hospital procedures. Focussing this technology on distracting the child from the pain and anxiety they feel from undergoing such treatments has already been proved to relieve up to 50% of the distress experienced by children suffering from various illnesses and procedures. These include procedures such as intravenous (IV) injections, vaccinations, anaesthesia administration and other procedures required as part of routine care such as burn wound dressing changes.
The novelty of this particular research is that it will make use of biometrics collected through non-invasive, wearable devices such as a smart-watch, to further enable the VR environment to change in real time according to the level of anxiety being felt by the patient. This essentially adapts the graphics of the VR game by way of background music tempo or actions done by characters to the high, or low, heart rate of the patient.
Speaking during the conference, Vodafone Malta Foundation chairman Michel Macelli said that the Vodafone Malta Foundation aims to first roll out the technology amongst children receiving cancer treatment at the Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre, and subsequently to all children receiving any form of hospital-based treatment.
“Our primary objective is to target strategic areas for investment in order to make maximum impact. We mainly work in the areas of health and education through our Connecting for Good programme, which is all about combining Vodafone’s charitable giving and technology to make a difference.”
The Rector of the University of Malta, Alfred Vella, indicated that the University has once again made sure that it is pushing the frontiers of knowledge, in order to discover “new and innovative solutions aimed at helping those suffering from some sort of pain”.
“This project will place Malta on the international map, together with other universities leading this area of research.”
The project will take three years to complete, split up into three separate stages – Development of the application; iteration of prototyping and validation of the work done; and the final stage dedicated to the analysis of the final product.