All Videos Tagged Robotics (MedTech I.Q.) - MedTech I.Q.

Robotics: Qatar Robotic Surgery Center (QRSC) Manager Discusses Center's Mission & Objectives

2010-06-05T17:47:53.144Z

ictqatar — April 05, 2010 — We take you to this exciting tour inside the Qatar Robotic Surgery Center (QRSC) at Qatar's Science and Technology Park (QSTP). QRSC Manager, Jan Nuyens tells us all about the use of robots in surgeries and demonstrates how surgical simulators and robotic surgeons can be used.

Robotics: Medical Robotics Bioports to the Human Body

2010-06-05T17:43:58.984Z

citrisuc — October 28, 2009 — Jacob Rosen [Prof. of Computer Engineering, UC Santa Cruz]
Abstract :
Medical Robotics is an emerging sub-discipline of robotics in which humans are the focal point of its creation. Humans interact with medical robotics either as health providers such as physicians or as the healthcare recipients - the patients. Introducing a medical robot at the interface between a physician and a patient is based on an understanding of the medical treatment itself and its related biology, physiology and anatomy. Inherent to the field of medical robotics is a unique synergy between medicine, life and health sciences, and many sub-disciplines of engineering. In this talk, two categories of Medical robotics will be explored: surgical robotics and wearable robotics.

The operating room of the future is envisioned as fully automated cell that includes only one human being - the patient. The local surgeon will be replaced by a surgical robot that will be teleoperated through wired and wireless communication, from any place around globe. The system will manage all the aspects of surgery, from monitoring the movements of the surgical robot to managing the supply chain. Achieving such a system depends on answering research questions such as what are the physical variables that lead to tissue damage; how to optimize the robotic arms to minimize their footprint in the operating room; how to objective assess surgical skill, and how to control the system from a distance to perform telesurgery.

A wearable robot is a system that humans wear as an extension of their body. In case of a missing limb a wearable robot serves as prosthetic device. In case of an existing limb with disabled functions it serves as an orthotic device. As opposed to surgical robotics where the human machine interface is limited to the physical level, wearable robot may interact with the patient at the neural level, utilizing the body's own control signals. The end result is to achieve a natural control of the wearable robot by the human operator as an extension of his or her body. Establishing the human machine interface at the neural level leads to research questions such as how to predict the muscular activity in real time and utilize this information for the exoskeleton operation along with additional questions in biosignals processing, neuromuscular modeling, and human motor control.

Biography:

Jacob Rosen received his B.Sc. degree in Mechanical Engineering, M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Biomedical Engineering from Tel-Aviv University in 1987, 1993 and 1997 respectively. From 1987 to 1992 he served as an officer in the IDF studying human-machine interfaces. From 1993 to 1997 he was a research associate developing and studying the EMG based powered Exoskeleton at the Biomechanics Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Tel-Aviv University. During the same period of time he held a position in a startup company developing innovative orthopedic spine/pelvis implants. From 1997 to 2000 he was a Post-Doc at the departments of Electrical Engineering and Surgery, University of Washington while developing surgical robotic and medical simulation systems. From 2001- 2008 he served a faculty member at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Washington in Seattle with adjunct appointments with the Departments of Surgery, and Mechanical Engineering. Since 2008 he has been an associate professor at the Department of Computer Engineering, University of California - Santa Cruz (UCSC). His research interests focus on medical robotics, biorobotics, human centered robotics, surgical robotics, wearable robotics, rehabilitation robotics, neural control, and human-machine interface.

Robotics: Human Augmentation

2010-03-09T12:32:32.808Z

From MIT World ...

These two MIT Museum speakers hope you’ll walk away from their talk with a good case of augmentation envy – or at least a healthy respect for what technology can do for the human body and soul.

John Hockenberry has used a wheelchair for 30 years, since a car accident left him a paraplegic. He tells us the public has viewed spinal cord injuries like his as “something horrific,” or “staggeringly poignant.” But in the last 10 years, disability has moved from being “an extraordinarily fringe activity” to a central issue facing society, that of “marrying technology with humanity in a way that is organic to the body, appropriate to the spirit and sustainable to the community.” Hockenberry believes that the needs and demands of disabled people are helping push science toward creating a set of design principles “that will allow this issue of human restoration and augmentation to merge into a kind of seamless unity.”

In illustration of this claim, Hugh Herr describes the astonishing strides engineers are making in the development of “Human 2.0.” He starts with himself -- a victim of frostbite during a 1982 mountain climbing accident. After losing both feet below the knee, Herr headed for the machine shop, and realized he didn’t have to accept the version of his body provided by nature. So he cobbled together a pair of prostheses perfect for climbing (which made him over 7 feet tall), followed by other foot-ankle replacements made lightweight and responsive through carbon composite materials and computers. These designs are better than his originals, suggests Herr. “What’s fun about having part of your body artificial is that you can upgrade. It’s depressing to me, too bad that you folks have biological limbs.”

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have fueled the work in Herr’s lab. He’s now building robotic versions of arms and legs that restore capability, using computers and powered systems with sensors and motors. Stroke victims can use similar models, wrapped around an impaired limb, to restore symmetry between their left and right sides. The big prize will be a neural interface, a way of growing and reactivating an amputated nerve, so that it begins to convey sensory information through the complex networks of the brain. “The dream here is that one day I and other people with limb amputations will not only be able to walk across a sandy beach but feel the sand against their prosthesis,” says Herr.

Researchers haven’t imposed limits on their attempts at augmentation – or improvement. An MIT lab has designed a “socio-emotional prosthesis,” Herr tells us – using deep brain stimulators that leave subjects feeling “happy, calm, content.” Hockenberry wonders in conclusion whether we are “blowing away the notion of normal entirely and creating a completely improvisational notion of what it means to be human.” Herr proposes that in the future, “when we have many, many types of intimate technologies that are inside and attached to our bodies, it will unleash a renaissance in expression.”

CIMIT Podcast: The Future of Surgery ... Dr. Bob Nguyen ... the Future of Surgery

2010-02-24T12:14:53.252Z

Robotic surgery is one of the most exciting and promising areas in the field of minimally invasive surgery. Due to recent technological innovations, surgeons are now able to perform complex reconstructive surgeries through small incisions. Patients undergoing robotic procedures are having less pain, faster recovery and shorter hospitalization. Bob Nguyen will review the evolution of robotic surgery and highlight some novel research in the field of robotic surgery.

Dr. Nguyen will be speaking at the weekly CIMIT Forum: 23 February 2009 from 4pm - 6pm @ Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. This event is free, open to the public, and no registration is required. For more information please visit the CIMIT.org Forum

CIMITblog is a publication of the Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT)

Robotics: InTouch Health & St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center Remote Presence Telemedicine

2009-10-29T02:16:54.064Z

St. Alphonsus Regional Medical Center uses Remote Presence (RP) telemedicine solutions to provide a mechanism of extending the expertise of Saint Alphonsus specialists to multiple partnering hospitals that would otherwise lack specialty services. Additionally, this program enhances the consultative services that specialists at Saint Alphonsus are able to provide internally.