Concept and Design of a Hand-held Mobile Robot System for Craniotomy

This work demonstrates a highly intuitive robot for Surgical Craniotomy Procedures. Utilising a wheeled hand-held robot, to navigate the Craniotomy Drill over a patient\u27s skull, the system does not remove the surgeons from the procedure, but supports them during this critical phase of the operation

Evidence-based management and clinical decision-making in temporomandibular joint disc displacement without reduction

Phd ThesisDisc displacement without reduction (DDwoR), also known as “closed lock” (CL), is a temporomandibular disorder that may cause painful and limited mouth opening. Patients with DDwoR may present to any clinician in practice, but in the acute phase, patients often seek care immediately from clinicians at the frontline in emergency or primary care. There is, however, a lack of understanding on how frontline clinicians behave and what decisions they make when initially presented with a DDwoR patient. The suggested therapeutic interventions for DDwoR vary considerably in invasiveness with contradictory opinions about the appropriate conservative or surgical intervention, and their timing, for managing DDwoR. This may cause confusion for clinicians and lead management of DDwoR to become based more on experience than evidence. The aim of this project is to inform and facilitate the development of a virtually delivered, evidence-informed, behavioural intervention for clinicians to aid management of DDwoR, through the identification of: the best available evidence for timing of intervention, and the intervention itself, for DDwoR; the influences on clinicians’ decision-making processes in the management of DDwoR. This project involved three separate, but sequential, studies. The first study was a systematic review of closed lock studies to investigate the effects of locking duration on DDwoR management. The second study was a systematic review of randomised trials to examine the therapeutic effects of interventions on DDwoR. The third study was a qualitative study interviewing clinicians at the frontline and specialist services in order to understand the decision-making processes in DDwoR management. The two systematic reviews suggest that the best available evidence for managing DDwoR is by intervening early with the simplest and least invasive intervention. The qualitative data suggest that the main behavioural influences on frontline clinicians’ decision to refer DDwoR early were their lack of condition-specific knowledge, skills, and experience which represent the theoretically-based core targets for a future intervention to support their decisions

Craniofacial anomalies in children: diagnosis, management, outcomes

The causes of facial anomalies in children may be congenital, traumatic, oncologic (or in some cases) remain unknown. Many of these craniofacial conditions warrant further elucidation of the clinical features, to allow accurate diagnosis and targeted management. Long term outcome studies of children with craniofacial anomalies, are essential to evaluate treatment protocols and to aid those who treat affected children to improve and advance their standards of care. These objectives require clinicians, along with their scientific colleagues to strive to increase their recognition of morphological anomalies and understanding of the underlying disease processes, so as to develop specific management strategies. The aim is to find new answers to improve the quality of life of affected children throughout the world. This collection of papers has been prompted by a desire to contribute towards that goal

Mental Disorders

This book brings together an international array of stars of the mental health professions to create a cutting edge volume that sheds light on many important and heretofore poorly understood issues in psychopathology. Mental Disorders-Theoretical and Empirical perspectives will be an important addition to the libraries of scholars and clinicians