Prototyping the Virtual Reality-Based NIHSS Stroke Assessment Training System

This study is a prototype of the virtual reality-based NIHSS stroke assessment training system and its evaluation. The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) plays an important role in assessing acute ischemic stroke. However, it has always been a difficult task to train young doctors or medical students. Both educators and learners face different problems. The lack of practice opportunities causes a gap between verbal lectures and clinical practice. In this study, we try to overcome the difficulties of mastering NIHSS. After some investigation, we found that virtual reality (VR) has great potential in this case. We created a virtual reality system in which users will be provided with virtual stroke patients in the hospital. By the designed user and patient’s movements and dialogues, the user can interact with the patient in person and learn through practice. The prototype currently takes a healthy adult as the virtual patient to find out major system usability problems, and actual cases in the real world can be imported into the VR system afterward to provide the learners with an adequate self-improvement space. It can also be a helpful tool for the educators to train professional clinical staff. Heuristic evaluation carried out by designers and neurologists was conducted throughout the development. The VR system is believed to be an effective way to learn NIHSS. It solved some of the current NIHSS training problems and showed its potential value of operating the clinical skill in person in a 3D immersive environment.