The effect of video game "warm-up" on performance of laparoscopic surgery tasks

Performing laparoscopic procedures requires special training and has been documented as a significant source of surgical errors. "Warming up" before performing a task has been shown to enhance performance. This study investigates whether surgeons benefit from "warming up" using s...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of the Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 3 - 9
Main Authors Rosser, Jr, James C, Gentile, Douglas A, Hanigan, Kevin, Danner, Omar K
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States Society of Laparoendoscopic Surgeons 01.01.2012
Subjects
Adult
Female
Humans
Laparoscopy - education
Male
Scientific Papers
Suture Techniques - education
Task Performance and Analysis
Video Games
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:Performing laparoscopic procedures requires special training and has been documented as a significant source of surgical errors. "Warming up" before performing a task has been shown to enhance performance. This study investigates whether surgeons benefit from "warming up" using select video games immediately before performing laparoscopic partial tasks and clinical tasks. This study included 303 surgeons (249 men and 54 women). Participants were split into a control (n=180) and an experimental group (n=123). The experimental group played 3 previously validated video games for 6 minutes before task sessions. The Cobra Rope partial task and suturing exercises were performed immediately after the warm-up sessions. Surgeons who played video games prior to the Cobra Rope drill were significantly faster on their first attempt and across all 10 trials. The experimental and control groups were significantly different in their total suturing scores (t=2.28, df=288, P<.05). The overall Top Gun score showed that the experimental group performed marginally better overall. This study demonstrates that subjects completing "warming-up" sessions with select video games prior to performing laparoscopic partial and clinical tasks (intracorporeal suturing) were faster and had fewer errors than participants not engaging in "warm-up." More study is needed to determine whether this translates into superior procedural execution in the clinical setting.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-2
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-1
content type line 23
Dr. James Rosser is a member of the Strkyer Advisory Board and CEO of Stealth Learning Company.
ISSN:1086-8089
1938-3797
DOI:10.4293/108680812X13291597715664