Interactive displays in medical art

Medical illustration is a field of visual communication with a long history. Traditional medical illustrations are static, 2-D, printed images; highly realistic depictions of the gross morphology of anatomical structures. Today medicine requires the visualization of structures and processes that have never before been seen. Complex 3-D spatial relationships require interpretation from 2-D diagnostic imagery. Pictures that move in real time have become clinical and research tools for physicians. Medical illustrators are involved with the development of interactive visual displays for three different, but not discrete, functions: as educational materials, as clinical and research tools, and as data bases of standard imagery used to produce visuals. The production of interactive displays in the medical arts is examined

The use of 3D surface fitting for robust polyp detection and classification in CT colonography

In this paper we describe the development of a computationally efficient computer-aided detection (CAD) algorithm based on the evaluation of the surface morphology that is employed for the detection of colonic polyps in computed tomography (CT) colonography. Initial polyp candidate voxels were detected using the surface normal intersection values. These candidate voxels were clustered using the normal direction, convexity test, region growing and Gaussian distribution. The local colonic surface was classified as polyp or fold using a feature normalized nearest neighborhood classifier. The main merit of this paper is the methodology applied to select the robust features derived from the colon surface that have a high discriminative power for polyp/fold classification. The devised polyp detection scheme entails a low computational overhead (typically takes 2.20 min per dataset) and shows 100% sensitivity for phantom polyps greater than 5 mm. It also shows 100% sensitivity for real polyps larger than 10 mm and 91.67% sensitivity for polyps between 5 to 10 mm with an average of 4.5 false positives per dataset. The experimental data indicates that the proposed CAD polyp detection scheme outperforms other techniques that identify the polyps using features that sample the colon surface curvature especially when applied to low-dose datasets

Monitoring and detection of agitation in dementia: towards real-time and big-data solutions

The changing demographic profile of the population has potentially challenging social, geopolitical, and financial consequences for individuals, families, the wider society, and governments globally. The demographic change will result in a rapidly growing elderly population with healthcare implications which importantly include Alzheimer type conditions (a leading cause of dementia). Dementia requires long term care to manage the negative behavioral symptoms which are primarily exhibited in terms of agitation and aggression as the condition develops. This paper considers the nature of dementia along with the issues and challenges implicit in its management. The Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSD) are introduced with factors (precursors) to the onset of agitation and aggression. Independent living is considered, health monitoring and implementation in context-aware decision-support systems is discussed with consideration of data analytics. Implicit in health monitoring are technical and ethical constraints, we briefly consider these constraints with the ability to generalize to a range of medical conditions. We postulate that health monitoring offers exciting potential opportunities however the challenges lie in the effective realization of independent assisted living while meeting the ethical challenges, achieving this remains an open research question remains.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Publisher's Comments

Welcome to the Journal of Biocommunication, the professional journal of the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI) and the BioCommunications Association (BCA). This JBC, issue 47-2, represents our second issue of the 2023 publishing year. We would like to thank our Management Board, our editors, our advisors, and our authors for their contributions to the success of our Journal. We appreciate the ongoing support from our JBC community around the world. In particular, we acknowledge the support of the AMI and the BCA. It's a privilege to be chosen as the professional academic journal of these two organizations

Publisher's Comments

Welcome to the Journal of Biocommunication, the professional journal of the Association of Medical Illustrators (AMI) and the BioCommunications Association (BCA). This JBC, issue 47-1, represents our first issue of the 2023 publishing year. We would like to thank our Management Board, our editors, our advisors, and our authors for their contributions to the success of our Journal. Our JBC Showcase features a memorial tribute to medical illustrator and educator, Steven Joseph Harrison. Steve was inducted as a Louis Schmidt Laureate in 2009 by the BCA, and he was a recipient of the AMI's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012. Our JBC Gallery features the award-winning images and media from the BCA's 2022 BioImages exhibition. We appreciate the ongoing support from our JBC community around the world. In particular, we acknowledge the support of the AMI and the BCA. It's a privilege to be chosen as the professional academic journal of these two organizations