Robotic simulators for tissue examination training with multimodal sensory feedback

Tissue examination by hand remains an essential technique in clinical practice. The effective application depends on skills in sensorimotor coordination, mainly involving haptic, visual, and auditory feedback. The skills clinicians have to learn can be as subtle as regulating finger pressure with breathing, choosing palpation action, monitoring involuntary facial and vocal expressions in response to palpation, and using pain expressions both as a source of information and as a constraint on physical examination. Patient simulators can provide a safe learning platform to novice physicians before trying real patients. This paper reviews state-of-the-art medical simulators for the training for the first time with a consideration of providing multimodal feedback to learn as many manual examination techniques as possible. The study summarizes current advances in tissue examination training devices simulating different medical conditions and providing different types of feedback modalities. Opportunities with the development of pain expression, tissue modeling, actuation, and sensing are also analyzed to support the future design of effective tissue examination simulators

11th Annual Focus on Creative Inquiry Poster Forum Program

The 2016 Focus on Creative Inquiry Poster Forum displays a selection of the projects accomplished by Clemson University students in their Creative Inquiry teams. What is Creative Inquiry? It is small-group learning for all students, in all disciplines. It is the imaginative combination of engaged learning and undergraduate research – and it is unique to Clemson University. In Creative Inquiry, small teams of undergraduate students work with faculty mentors to take on problems that spring from their own curiosity, a professor’s challenge, or the pressing needs of the world around them. Students take ownership of their projects. They ask questions, they take risks, and they get answers

A Modular and Extensible Architecture Integrating Sensors, Dynamic Displays of Anatomy and Physiology, and Automated Instruction for Innovations in Clinical Education

Adoption of simulation in healthcare education has increased tremendously over the past two decades. However, the resources necessary to perform simulation are immense. Simulators are large capital investments and require specialized training for both instructors and simulation support staff in order to develop curriculum using the simulator and to use the simulator to train students. Simulators require staff to run the simulator, and instructors must always be present to guide and assess student performance. Current simulators do not support self-learning by students. As a result, the expensive simulators sit idle most of the day. Furthermore, simulators are minimally customizable, resulting in programs often being required to purchase simulators that have more functions and features than needed or that cannot be upgraded as needs change. This dissertation presents the development of BodyExplorer, a system designed to address limitations of current simulators by reducing the resources required to support simulation in healthcare education, enabling self-use by students, and providing an architecture to support modular and extensible simulator development and upgrades. This dissertation discusses BodyExplorer’s initial prototype design, integration, and verification, as well as development of the modular architecture for integrating sensors, dynamic displays of anatomy and physiology, and automated instruction. Novel sensor systems were integrated to measure user actions while performing (simulated) medication administration, cricoid pressure application, and endotracheal intubation on a simulation mannequin. Dynamic displays of anatomy and physiology, showing animations of breathing lungs or a beating heart, for example, were developed and integrated into BodyExplorer. Projected augmented reality is used to show users underlying anatomy and physiology on the surface of the mannequin, allowing users to see the internal consequences of their actions. An interface for supporting self-use and showing additional views of anatomy was incorporated using a mobile display. Using the projected images, mobile display, and audio output, a virtual instructor was developed to provide automated instructions to users based upon real-time sensor measurements. Development of BodyExplorer was performed iteratively and included feedback from end-users throughout development using user-centered design principles. The mixed-methods results from three usability testing sessions with end-users at two academic institutions will be presented, along with the rationale for design decisions that derived from the results. Built upon feedback received during usability testing, the results from two scenarios of automated instruction will be provided by demonstrating examples of learning to apply cricoid pressure and learning to administer (simulated) medications in order to control heart rate. Discussion will also be provided regarding how the automated instruction techniques can be extended to provide training in other healthcare applications

Soft Robot-Assisted Minimally Invasive Surgery and Interventions: Advances and Outlook

Since the emergence of soft robotics around two decades ago, research interest in the field has escalated at a pace. It is fuelled by the industry's appreciation of the wide range of soft materials available that can be used to create highly dexterous robots with adaptability characteristics far beyond that which can be achieved with rigid component devices. The ability, inherent in soft robots, to compliantly adapt to the environment, has significantly sparked interest from the surgical robotics community. This article provides an in-depth overview of recent progress and outlines the remaining challenges in the development of soft robotics for minimally invasive surgery

DICOM for EIT

With EIT starting to be used in routine clinical practice [1], it important that the clinically relevant information is portable between hospital data management systems. DICOM formats are widely used clinically and cover many imaging modalities, though not specifically EIT. We describe how existing DICOM specifications, can be repurposed as an interim solution, and basis from which a consensus EIT DICOM ‘Supplement’ (an extension to the standard) can be writte

Estimation of thorax shape for forward modelling in lungs EIT

The thorax models for pre-term babies are developed based on the CT scans from new-borns and their effect on image reconstruction is evaluated in comparison with other available models

Rapid generation of subject-specific thorax forward models

For real-time monitoring of lung function using accurate patient geometry, shape information needs to be acquired and a forward model generated rapidly. This paper shows that warping a cylindrical model to an acquired shape results in meshes of acceptable mesh quality, in terms of stretch and aspect ratio

Torso shape detection to improve lung monitoring

Two methodologies are proposed to detect the patient-specific boundary of the chest, aiming to produce a more accurate forward model for EIT analysis. Thus, a passive resistive and an inertial prototypes were prepared to characterize and reconstruct the shape of multiple phantoms. Preliminary results show how the passive device generates a minimum scatter between the reconstructed image and the actual shap

Nanoparticle electrical impedance tomography

We have developed a new approach to imaging with electrical impedance tomography (EIT) using gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) to enhance impedance changes at targeted tissue sites. This is achieved using radio frequency (RF) to heat nanoparticles while applying EIT imaging. The initial results using 5-nm citrate coated AuNPs show that heating can enhance the impedance in a solution containing AuNPs due to the application of an RF field at 2.60 GHz

Book of Abstracts 15th International Symposium on Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering and 3rd Conference on Imaging and Visualization

In this edition, the two events will run together as a single conference, highlighting the strong connection with the Taylor & Francis journals: Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering (John Middleton and Christopher Jacobs, Eds.) and Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical Engineering: Imaging and Visualization (JoãoManuel R.S. Tavares, Ed.). The conference has become a major international meeting on computational biomechanics, imaging andvisualization. In this edition, the main program includes 212 presentations. In addition, sixteen renowned researchers will give plenary keynotes, addressing current challenges in computational biomechanics and biomedical imaging. In Lisbon, for the first time, a session dedicated to award the winner of the Best Paper in CMBBE Journal will take place. We believe that CMBBE2018 will have a strong impact on the development of computational biomechanics and biomedical imaging and visualization, identifying emerging areas of research and promoting the collaboration and networking between participants. This impact is evidenced through the well-known research groups, commercial companies and scientific organizations, who continue to support and sponsor the CMBBE meeting series. In fact, the conference is enriched with five workshops on specific scientific topics and commercial software.info:eu-repo/semantics/draf