Posted on 06/07/2006 10:42:18 AM PDT by Millee
Life-saving breast examinations could soon be performed by a robotic hand that combines ultrasound with an artificial sense of touch.
The robotic breast examiner was devised by researchers at Michigan State University in the US. They say it will enable a medical specialist to examine women from a remote location, perhaps even from the other side of the world.
"Just because you’re located in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan or even Botswana, it doesn’t mean you can’t have a sophisticated diagnostic or therapeutic procedure," says Carol Slomski, a surgeon at Michigan State University, who helped design the system.
The robot hand is remotely controlled by means of a haptic "glove", in which each finger is connected to a motion-sensing device. The operator's hand movements are then measured and sent via a computer to the artificial hand, which almost instantly mimics the operator's moves. Hand-in-glove
The robotic grasper also measures the consistency of objects in its grasp by means of feedback to its motors. And this tactile information is fee back to the mechanical glove giving the wearer an artificial sensation of touch.
The arm also incorporates an ultrasound sensor as well as three video cameras, to give the expert a good view of the procedure.
"Having the capability of ultrasound and palpation simultaneously is a major advantage," adds Ranjan Mukherjee, another member of the Michigan team. "Often the ultrasound and exam are done separately. But if the physician can look at the image and feel what he or she is seeing, that’s another huge advantage." Data delay
Mukherjee says the next stage is to conduct clinical trials, which should show how reliable the system is. But he believes it could be five years before the system becomes commercially available.
“It is a realistic thing to try to do,” says computer interaction expert Stephen Brewster, at the University of Glasgow, UK. “Lots of telesurgery work is for the military so it is nice to see something coming into the standard medical domain.”
But Brewster adds that the system would need to match a doctor’s bedside manner when dealing with patients. “There are of course issues with powerful robots coming into direct contact with people,” he told New Scientist. “It would have to be very carefully designed and tested to make sure that it could not exert inappropriate forces and so cause harm.”
But some experts are more doubtful that such a system would work in practice. "Tele-operated robots have a big problem with delay," says William Harwin, at the University of Reading in the UK, and the sensitivity of touch is not as good.
He suggests a better way to perform remote examinations is to perform the data gathering and expert analysis one after the other. "A more realistic model in principal is to gather data from the remote site, under direction from the clinical base," he explains, and then transfer it the remote expert, who could then use virtual reality tools to interpret it.
Yeouch ping!
I'm no Luddite, but sometimes the advance of technology leaves me sad.
500 posts. Easy.
Oh boy, this is gonna be a thread to end all threads! :) I got my hand in early!
If only I had the time to post a witty reply.
Oh, hell, no.
I'm thinking, x-rated medical site featuring girls with webcams....
LOL! Exactly the robot I could see volunteering for this job!
Now we no longer require the services of illegal aliens to pick peaches.
they aint doing this for prostrate exams are they?!?!?!?!
I'm sure the Botswani would be thrilled to receive this modern miracle. They may not have a modern hospital, but by-golly they'd be one step closer to it!
</sarc
WHere do I sign up to be a sales engineer or a repair tech???????
Is it bad that I have been told I have a robotic grip?
Finally... a long-distance feeler-upper... :-)
It'll sell.
Will it replace mammograms? If it does, I'm all for it!
They just took all the fun out of being a doctor.
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