Legos are enjoyed by kids and adults alike, including Bjarke Ingels, one of the world's greatest architects. Furthermore, Lego can be used for medical training, specifically for technical skills in the field of anesthesia.
Learning how to build with Lego pieces trains the mind with creativity while improving fine motor skills and problem-solving or critical thinking. Medical experts from the University of Nottingham's School of Psychology and School of Medicine published their new study in the British Journal of Anaesthesia.
They designed a simple task where medical students replicated structures using bricks that they saw in a mirror. The exercise resulted in better performance of an ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia (UGRA) task.
To perform the UGRA task, anesthetists inject local anesthetic medicines, or pain relievers, around specific nerves after surgery. This is normally done using an ultrasound machine which minimizes the risks of the procedure and directs the injection into the right position around the nerves.
Doctors training to become an anesthetist develops necessary skills through extensive practice with expensive simulators while learning during their time of clinical care. Moreover, the safety of their patients is a priority.
Lego Training
Dr. David Hewson, a Consultant Anesthetist at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said that UGRA 'is a vital skill practiced by anesthetists around the world to reduce pain after surgery. These procedures require a high level of accuracy and skill and it is vital we find safe and reliable ways to help train doctors to perform them. We wanted to explore an inexpensive, accessible, and self-directed educational tool to improve the ability of doctors to perform regional anesthesia using ultrasound direction.'
94 volunteers without UGRA were enrolled in the study and first took a mental rotation test. A mental rotation test consists of 3D objects which are rotated to different angles and two figures must match the original figure.
The training took 30 minutes where the students looked at a mirror showing two-dimensional images of a 3D model made of Lego Duplo bricks. After building their structure, they compared what they built with the original model and had to correct any errors.
Students repeated the training procedure for 30 minutes with up to 10 models which increased in difficulty. Meanwhile, another group of students without training just waited in a separate room.
Afterward, both groups took the mental rotational test again. The students were then assessed for the same standardized UGRA needling task on a laboratory model.
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Medical Technical Skills
The team observed that students with Lego training performed significantly better than those without training. The Lego task was designed with the help of Professor Eamonn Ferguson from the university's School of Psychology.
Professor Ferguson explained, 'This research provides a simple and innovative solution to improving people's spatial rotation and awareness.' Modern medical technical skills require doctors to understand the relationship between a 2D image of an organ and the 3D organ inside the body. 'This involves finding anatomical landmarks and understanding where you are in 3D space.'
'We had people actively engage in building as this helps to coordinate eye-hand movement and 3D representations in the brain. This simple task was extremely effective,' said Professor Ferguson. A few minutes building with Legos saves expensive time in the simulator, he concluded.
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