Auburn Ed Talks
Auburn Ed Talks is the official podcast of Auburn University’s College of Education. On this podcast, we spotlight the people, ideas and innovations shaping the future of education.
Auburn Ed Talks
VR and AR in Training and Rehab
Technologies once associated with gaming and entertainment are now reshaping how people learn to move, recover from injury and navigate the world. Virtual, augmented and mixed reality — collectively known as experiential reality (XR) — are creating safer, more precise and more personalized environments for skill development and rehabilitation. At Auburn University’s College of Education, these tools are becoming integral to understanding and improving human performance. This episode of Auburn Ed Talks, “VR and AR in Training and Rehab,” dives into that topic.
Hey everyone and welcome back to Auburn Ed Talks, the official podcast of Auburn University's College of Education, recorded right here in the College of Education's Frances and William Kochan Media Production Room, Auburn Ed Talks spotlights the people, ideas and innovations shaping the future of education and beyond. Today, we're diving into a fascinating topic that blends technology and human performance and how virtual reality and augmented reality are transforming training and rehabilitation. Joining us is Dr. Harsimran Baweja from our college’s School of Kinesiology, a leading voice in this space. And to guide the conversation we have one of our amazing student ambassadors as host. So let's get to talking!
Student Ambassador:Hello everyone. I'm Maddison, a sophomore majoring in elementary education. I'm a student ambassador in the College of Education, and I'm so glad to be talking with Dr. Baweja here on Auburn Ed Talks.
Dr. Baweja:War Eagle!
Student Ambassador:War Eagle! So before we dive into VR and AR, we always like to start with a quick lightning round to get to know you better. Does that sound good?
Dr. Baweja:Alright, let's do it.
Student Ambassador:Ok. Where's your hometown?
Dr. Baweja:Hometown? Depends. So my mother and father were both military personnel. My father was a bomber reconnaissance pilot. My mother was in the Army nursing corps, so we moved around every two years. So home is where my heart is. And the longest I've ever spent in one place was San Diego, California, before I came to Auburn. So right now home is Auburn. Otherwise it's San Diego.
Student Ambassador:When did you move to Auburn and how did that come about?
Dr. Baweja:So I moved to Auburn in, January of 2023. And it came about because, I was recruited here to start a physical therapy program for Auburn University in the College of Education, and the program situated in the School of Kinesiology. So I'm the founding director for the physical therapy program.
Student Ambassador:Tell our listeners a bit about what you teach in Auburn’s School of Kinesiology.
Dr. Baweja:So I'm a neurophysiologist by training and a physical therapist also by clinical training. I'm a professor in the School of Kinesiology for physical therapy. So in the physical therapy program, I would teach neuroscience. But as a clinician, I'm an acute care therapist so cardiothoraic and ICU care. So those are the things that I teach in classrooms to future physical therapists. But I'm also a neurophysiologist. So I have a research lab. So in my lab, I teach students how to run scientific experiments in understanding human mobility, whether it's balance or driving or walking. And that's how we got into virtual and augmented reality that we're talking about today.
Student Ambassador:Okay. Interesting.
Dr. Baweja:Yeah.
Student Ambassador:So if you weren't in kinesiology, what career would you choose?
Dr. Baweja:If I wasn't in kinesiology... When I was eight years old, I wanted to be what every eight year old wanted to be. I wanted to be an astronaut. And then I got realistic that I wasn't going to get to the moon. So I went into virtual reality moons. But I love motorcycles. And so if I had to be - and now proper dad mode, so I'm introducing you to the guy - If I was not a PT professor, then, I'd be a motorcycle cop. I'd be pulling people over for bad driving.
Student Ambassador:Do you have a motorcycle?
Dr. Baweja:Yes, I have a few motorcycles.
Student Ambassador:What colors are they?
Dr. Baweja:Gray. Black. Blue. Blue. Gray. Yellow. I have a yellow motorcycle. Yeah.
Student Ambassador:And finally, I also heard a really cool story about you and your daughter possibly swimming at one point from Alcatraz to San Francisco. You have to tell me what inspired that adventure. Yes. So my daughter is almost 12. She turns 12 in February. She was nine when we swam from Alcatraz to San Fran to the Ghiradelli Factory around two and a half, three miles, against the current. And what inspired that was that a couple of years prior to that, as we were coming out of Covid in second grade, a few months too late, we found out that our daughter was getting bullied at school and of the many emotions that a father would go through, one of them was, how do I teach her a lifelong lesson? To be able to fight adversity and grow and get stronger? And that it's not about falling down, but standing back up and being stronger? So we started swimming in the Pacific. I was surfing in San Diego at that time, and so I'd go out for swims also occasionally in La Jolla Cove. And she saw that and she was like, I would like to go out for a swim with you.” This is my six and a half, seven year old. And I was like, “absolutely come. I’ll show you what we can do.” And so I took her out for a couple swims. First it was 50 yards, then 100 yards, and then I taught her to duck under a wave because there are big waves in the Pacific. So once she was comfortable with that, we started swimming longer distances. And buoyancy is a tad easier in the ocean because of the salt water and so forth. So, when she was eight and a half, she swam a mile with me. She had swam enough that she swam a mile with me, to and back from the half Malibu in, the Pacific. And then we moved to Auburn. So the Pacific swimming stopped, and she's like, “I still miss swimming open water.” So not only did we join the Opelika swim team, so she swims competitively for them right now. I was like, “alright, let me find something.” So I went up looking for an open water swim. Found out that annually at the tail end of summer, there is a swim that happens in Alcatraz and it's called the Shark Fest swim because supposedly the water has sharks in it. Something I did not tell my daughter. And, I signed us up for the Shark Fest swim. And then I went looking deeper. And somewhere since the internet started keeping a record, I think three girls, youngest being nine years old, had swam from San Francisco to Alcatraz, and one boy, eight and a half, nine years old, had not only swam across from San Francisco to Alcatraz but he had swam back from Alcatraz to San Francisco. I didn't know why it was important. Even though I was swimming in open water, I hadn't connected the dots. Current and tide matter. One direction, it's usually easier to swim in. That's the San Francisco to Alcatraz direction. But Shark Fest is swam, jumping off of a ferry outside of Alcatraz and then swimming to San Francisco in the opposite direction. So you have to catch the current. You have to, catch the tide, and it's a longer swim. Long story, long, we made that swim. 900 people jumped out into the water that day. 537 finished. The youngest of the 537 was Michelle, my daughter, and it took us an hour and a half to swim three miles. What's more important in the story is we're going back next summer because now she's a competitive swimmer. She'll be 12. So we're going back next summer to this time actually race in all categories, to put a time on the clock. I love that lesson. It's a powerful lesson. I like the way that you tied it to something that she could relate to, which was swimming. Now let's shift gears. Today's topic is virtual reality and augmented reality in training and rehabilitation. These technologies are popping up everywhere from sports performance to clinical rehab. First, what is virtual reality and what is augmented reality?
Dr. Baweja:Great question. So there is a continuum of technology. If you looked at visual technologies that are used to, typically thought of playing video games, But we now use them across the board for several other things. So virtual reality, as the word suggets virtual, is maybe you put on a headset and you're in an alternate reality, you're in a video game, you're a floating head in the video game with two hands. Augmented reality is where your current present reality around you in this room is augmented by the instruments that you put on your head, so AR, a good example of AR is the latest, meta glasses that came out when Zuckerberg wore them. And that is a camera, which puts up a heads up display on one of the glasses. That's augmenting reality, because it will show you the picture you just took. It will give you directions on that side. It augments your reality. It could also be a version of a mixed reality headset that it mixes virtual on top of your real reality. Okay, so that's the that's the virtual reality experiential reality continuum. And so sometimes we combine all of these, put them under the same umbrella and call it XR or otherwise virtual mixed augmented reality. That's a continuum.
Student Ambassador:How do you see them changing the way we approach human movement and recovery?
Dr. Baweja:Huge. It's not going to replace the current rehab standards and how we treat our patients or how we teach. It's not a replacement. It's an enhancement. It's an add on tool. if one sees it as that, then it is going to improve whatever it is you're aiming to do, whether it is you're trying to teach students the phases of the moon, historically, they were taught with a popsicle stick in a dark room and a flashlight. But if you put on that VR headset, you are standing on top of the moon looking at the Earth. You can then walk up to Earth and turn around and look at the moon. And then here's the kicker. You can use your, remote control handle, grab the sun and spin it around your head, and you can see how the phases of the moon change. Because the phases of the moon are the shadow of the Earth, on the moon, when the sun is behind you. So you can see that, then it clicks.
Student Ambassador:I actually remember one year for Christmas, I think it was around 7 or 8. I got a VR headset and one of the things in it was walking on the moon. So that is really cool.
Dr. Baweja:Yeah.
Student Ambassador:How do these tools improve outcomes compared to traditional methods?
Dr. Baweja:Again, not replacing traditional methods, but adding on to the traditional methods. How do they improve these outcomes? You can make the exercise more specific. You can make the training more targeted. You can make the training more to the scenario in which something happens, I'll give you an example. An older adult or somebody with a stroke or Parkinson's disease or anything for that matter. You and me. Okay, we have to cross the street, but we are new to this environment Yes, I can take you to the corner of the street, and we can walk across the street and back and forth until you get comfortable crossing the street. A few people will honk at you, and then you can transfer that knowledge and go to New York and know that if I see a pedestrian crossing, press the button and cross the street. But it's unsafe if you wanted to train somebody to do that. Now, what if I took you to my laboratory? You put on that headset, I've got a 20 meter walkway, and as soon as you put on your headset, you are in downtown Manhattan on a pedestrian crossing, and you can safely walk back and forth, and I can train you how to do that, which is very useful when it comes to training individuals who have neurological diseases or older adults who are slow at moving. So you can do that in a safe environment. Train them. They're not afraid. The fear of getting hit, therefore inducing a fear of learning that activity goes away and then they're comfortable doing the things you get to do in the real world. That's how it would enhance. And that's what I meant by improving the specificity of what you're doing.
Student Ambassador:Are there specific populations athletes, older adults, patients recovering from injury who benefit most?
Dr. Baweja:Yes and no. Anybody can benefit of it. It depends on the instance of usage. So why do you want to use it is what matters. What's the prescription of that do you want to use it to train older adults how to navigate safely in an environment that would be novel to them. Do you want to train an athlete to specifically focus at one thing that helps improve their performance in a movement? Those are the things you would use to enhance or augment the training, so it can be used on anybody. It depends. Otherwise the misconception is it's just a fad. It's a gimmick. People are just playing games and they're getting nothing out of it. And it could be true if you're using that instrument purposelessly. It depends on the application of what you're using it for, that you'd be able to see the benefits in any population you want to.
Student Ambassador:Where do you see this field heading in the next five years?
Dr. Baweja:In five years, XR, or experiential reality, you know, virtual, augmented, you name it, it's already here. It's not a five year thing. It's already here. You put your Ray-Ban glasses, it's got a camera on it, you can talk to it and you can say, “hey Meta, where am I in space?” I have those glasses. That's what I use. It talks back to me, it converts and translates everything for me. The field is already there, okay? It's how we apply it is going to become a more mainstream application rather than right now being a specialty application. Right now it's mad scientists and those who can play with it and afford it. And, in five years, I would hope that it becomes an everyday thing for people to use, not to replace what we do, but to enhance how we use it to get better outcomes. That's where it will become more equitable for everybody. We’ll be able to apply it better, especially in telehealth kind of situations, or to teach better or to train better, not just in rehab, but in education. Hopefully in five years, we’ll get there. It'll go from being a gimmick to an everyday thing, because even ten years ago, 12 years ago, when I got into this thing, it was a fad. And us, in five years it should be an everyday thing. We shouldn't have to worry about it being a gimmick or a fad.
Student Ambassador:How do you prepare students in the School of Kinesiology to work with these technologies?
Dr. Baweja:You know, I'm going to tell you something about training that will kind of be anti-climactic to the training. Do I want them to learn how to use the virtual reality headsets? Yes, but that's not the first thing. That's not the second thing, the third thing... it’s the fifth thing on the top ten, maybe What we need to do to train students to become good consumers and therefore, practitioners of the technology is work on fundamental knowledge, understand the basics and the foundations of movement analysis, motor learning, and applying these foundational principles to whether it is rehabilitation or athletic performance or human performance, whatever you want to study. And then teach them how to be good consumers of the technology to apply it to get that “Aha! I can use it over there. I can use my virtual reality headset to put somebody in the middle of Manhattan and help them cross the street well within my laboratory.” I can use my cell phone or my laptop to project a hologram of the skull and teach neuroanatomy. But if you don't know what you're looking for, then putting it in a virtual reality headset only makes it, a thing that sits on the shelf to look good. That's not the purpose of the technology.
Student Ambassador:Can you tell me about the different technology that you have in your lab?
Dr. Baweja:Yes. How much time do we have? We have several virtual reality and mixed reality headsets in the lab, which are used primarily for balance training and for walking, where I can put you in the scenario that I described to you about retraining people to walk in downtown Manhattan. That's a real scenario that we have in our lab. Then we have other scenarios where we can take you skydiving. If you have the fear of heights, then we can test the physiology while having you, “skydive” safely by just sitting in a chair and jumping out of an airplane. And we can study what's the core physiology that goes on? What happens to your heart rate when you jump out of an airplane? It goes from 60 to 120 very quickly. We have, augmented reality headsets and simulations that we play on our driving simulator to understand driving behavior and retrain driving behavior in those with neurological injuries. I've worked with racecar drivers where we've put on the virtual reality headset and put them on racetracks that they would be driving on in preparation for the race next weekend, and then learn how to go through that corner faster, or breathe on the straightaway when you're driving 150mph. What's more impressive, or equally impressive that we have, is we have this technology in our classrooms. So when I came in four years ago, we set up the physical therapy program. We now have the university’s first human anatomy simulation lab, and we've got four anatomy simulation tables. Each one of these tables houses several cadavers and other anatomical and physiological models. in them that can be used in almost a virtual reality sense to run dissections and learn anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, principles of human movement. right there on that giant simulation table.
Student Ambassador:How often are students using these different technologies in the lab?
Dr. Baweja:They have access to the lab 24/7. So, for anatomy, students have access to the lab, seven days a week. For my research lab, you have to be a student of the lab. And they are in the lab all the time.
Student Ambassador:For students interested in this area, what skills should they start developing now?
Dr. Baweja:Before touching advanced technology, students need a rock solid understanding of motor control and motor learning. These are subfields in kinesiology, biomechanics, the kinematics and kinetics of movement. How do joints interact? How do muscles interact? How is a movement performed? They have to first become experts in that. Exercise physiology and its fundamentals. Postural control. How do we control our movement and our balance those things? How do we walk? Gait analysis. Unless you don't understand that applying technology to it is is futile. Virtual and augmented reality are only powerful tools when students understand what they are measuring and why it matters.
Student Ambassador:Thanks, Dr. Baweja. This has been so insightful. Before we wrap up, what's one key takeaway you hope listeners remember about VR and AR in training and rehab?
Dr. Baweja:So the one key takeaway that would summarize all of what we've spoken about and things that we didn't speak about would be that experiential reality, or XR, like we like to call it, whether it is virtual reality, augmented reality - these aren’t just new tools. They've been around for a while. They have fundamentally expanded what's possible in whether you want to look at human movement training, rehabilitation, the teaching of sciences, training medical professionals on empathy and case scenarios, you name it. Okay, enabling precise, adaptive, data driven experiences. And these are an add on or superior to the traditional methods that simply can't be replicated without augmented reality or with exponential reality. So everything else: skills, challenges, student preparation, future trends, flows from that core truth. What XR allows you to do is it enhances, it accelerates and personalizes learning and recovery when it is grounded in strong foundational principles. You can not discount getting up in the morning, going to school and learning what is being taught to then apply it with the tech that we use. That would be my big take home.
Student Ambassador:Thank you so much again, Dr. Baweja for joining us on Auburn Ed Talks, where great minds keep the conversation rolling. And thanks to everyone for listening. Be sure to subscribe for more conversations that inspire, inform and ignite your passion for education and innovation. War Eagle!
Dr. Baweja:War Eagle!