ABSTRACT
Introduction:
Surgical
lighting systems have to be re-adjusted manually during
surgery by the medical
personnel. While some authors suggest that interaction with a surgical
lighting system in the
operating room might be a distractor, others support the idea that manual interaction with the surgical
lighting system is a
hygiene problem as pathogens might be present on the handle. In any case, it seems desirable to develop a novel approach to surgical
lighting that minimizes the need for manual interaction during a
surgical procedure. Methodes We investigated the effect of manual interaction with a classical surgical
lighting system and simulated a proposed novel design of a surgical
lighting system in a
virtual reality environment with
respect to performance accuracy as well as cognitive load (measured by electroencephalographical recordings).
Results:
We found that manual interaction with the surgical lights has no effect on the quality of performance, yet for the
price of a higher mental effort, possibly leading to faster
fatigue of the medical
personnel in the long run.
Discussion:
Our proposed novel surgical
lighting system negates the need for manual interaction and leads to a performance quality comparable to the classical
lighting system, yet with less mental load for the surgical
personnel.