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Intelligent Scalpels Through Touch Technology
DullTrev writes: "The BBC News site is running a story about touch technology. Basically, haptics is the science of incorporating a sense of touch into technology. Scientists at the University of Tokyo have developed a sensor which can feel. So you could have a surgeon operating with a scalpel incorporating this technology, the scalpel could push back against the surgeon when he tries to slice and dice an artery. I'm sure there could be loads of applications for this technology - most uselessly the test these scientists have been doing - stopping cutting a hardboiled egg when you get to the yolk..."
According to the article, it tells the boundary between the objects via the varying conductivities. Interesting. Now, unless I'm mistaken - it's been a long time since I've had any electronics education - you can't measure conductance without applying voltage, yes? If so, this seems like it may not be the most healthful thing possible. Granted, we're probably not talking about much voltage, but electricity and people are just not a good combination. We get enough fried enough because of sitting in front of monitors all day - this isn't gonna help.
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http://cooltech.org
If it ain't cool, it ain't coolt
..that surgeons make enough mistakes that something like this is perceived as necessary.
I wanna reach out and feel someone.
It's not just for telemedicine. The idea is to give enhanced feedback, superior to what you would get with just touch. This would allow a surgeon cut exactly what's intended, even if visual or tactile feedback isn't enough to distinguish between different types of tissue.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
Because, simply, it would mean a surgeon wouldn't have to travel the world to operate on different people. He/She could work on someone in Paris, and then a few hours later do another operation on someone in Sydney, and then another on someone in Los Angles. Qualified surgeons are a rare bunch and the more people who have access to their skills the better..
Also, sometimes surgeons can't be there. How about operating in a war zone. Or on an astronaut in space..
http://twitter.com/onion2k
Our company works with haptics in surgical *training*, and I must say that this is both more effective and involves fewer regulation issues. Using haptics to simulate a surgical procedure means that surgeons can train to be better - and then they don't need a computer to stop them from killing me. Heck, it even saves pigs.
most uselessly the test these scientists have been doing
Useless tests?
This is an experimental new tool. The scientists are predicting it can be used to detect (say) the membrane surrounding blood vessels, yet these tests are useless?
It would be both foolish and ignorant to test out an EXPERIMENTAL tool that actually MOVES in a surgical life/death environment. What then could be used to test out its detection of slight changes in membrane? Hello? The layer surrounding the yolk would be similiar to the same one you would see in a vessel...
Difference? If the tool screws up with the egg, then you can have scrambled eggs... the result in a person isnt even half as good.
The surgeon is being trained to keep cutting until the knife warns him that the tissue he's about to cut is important.
So if the knife DOESN'T warn him - even for a couple miliseconds, he cuts right through arteries or nerves.
The potential for trouble is enormous.
And unlike VR built from MRI imaging, there's no indication that a failure is in progress until the damage is done.
I sure hope the authors of any software involved, and the designers of any hardware, are VERY good at building a VERY robust product.
I remember a certain radiation therapy machine, which operated in two modes - one with an attenuation shield, one without it. If you typed too fast on the touch-panel control, it would go through the whole cycle normally, but with the shield OUT rather than IN. Killed several patients before they figured out what was happening.
I hear they had done a marvelous faiure analysis on the hardware. But they had assumed the software would be perfect.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Millersville University has been working on related technologies.
http://cs.millersv.edu
(too lazy to html in the morning).
--T
http://www.theMediaBunker.com
Something I have been wondering for a while...
how would they go about doing this? They would have to use some kind of telecommunications equipment so transmission of data/pictures/etc could be available to the doctor in REAL TIME.
AFAIK, any kind of connection between countries will not be instant nor semi-instant. Can you imagine the problems associated with lag or a "disconnection" while in the midst of dangerous surgery?
It is a very interesting concept, but one that should not even be explored until we have the capabilities to give realtime data transmission and to guarentee that random/arbitrary disconnects just dont occur. Doesnt matter how bad your local doctor is if the perfect "virtual" doctor might just disappear on you as he is cutting into a heart...
Obviously you've never considered Australia (or any other sparsely populated area)
Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.
And what if that rural area doesn't happen to have DSL? Trusting my counterstrike stats in the face of latency is one thing, but can you picture a doctor fighting with it?
"DOOD, wtf? You just p4wned that guy's aorta!"
"Bah, lag"
"Lag schmag joo sux0r"
Am I the only one who heard Roxette to sing "I'm gonna get blitzed for some sex"?
IIRC, surgeons practice on eggs because they have the same sort of 'feel' as human internals do.
...Or am I thinking of oranges? They have the same properties as human skin, ISTR.
Anyway - would you rather they test this out on real living tissue (e.g. your heart) or on something which is already dead and gives a similar consistency/texture/feel?
I know which I'd rather they try first.
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Igirisu
One application I could think of would be space travel. If you have a couple guys on a space station a few hundred miles above the earth and one needs an emergency medical procedure this could really come in handy. I don't know if this would work out for someone on a deep space mission though as the latency might be too great.
Another application could be a cruise ship, battle ship, or submarine. Could have an expert perform an emergency procedure remotely without having to disrupt the ship operations, or having to airlift the patient.
If this could be made portable, it could also prove useful on the battlefield if you have a wounded soldier in need of a life-saving specialist.
Such technology already is in use to harvest tomatoes. A robot arm can slightly squeeze them and determine the ripeness of a tomato based on the firmness of the tomato. If not ripe, then the tomato is left alone to get some more sun. It's systems like this which can be used to automate farms.
I intend to live forever, so far so good.
Aside from serious apps, I wonder if this could be used for recreational weapons and stage props. A sword that cuts everything but human skin would be peachy keen.
Imagine.. you and your geeky Renaissance friends could suit up and smash away with realistic swords and minimal armor- no more dorky duct tape swords, W00t!
Meaning everyone will have two little needles in a box on their desktop, which they can use to feel the texture of a website? My guess is that successfully bringing haptics to the desktop and making them part of everyday usage will not happen "soon", but will take a great deal more development until the same quality of tactile feedback can be translated to, say, a VR glove, and linked to visuals. Even then, in its initial stages, I see few applications beyond some games and pr0n.
Ceci n'est pas une sig
Hasn't it occured to anyone that if a doctor is so error-prone, constantly nicking arteries of his patients, that he shouldn't be practicing surgery in the first place?
Just what the doctor ordered.. An electric steak-knife. Sorry, gang, but if a surgeon cant handle a scalpel with any degree of competence, you need to find a new surgeon, not a new scalpel.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
It is a very interesting concept, but one that should not even be explored until we have the capabilities to give realtime data transmission and to guarentee that random/arbitrary disconnects just dont occur.
We basicly do, Iternet2. there are FAR less users than on the regular internet, everyone has a minimum of 150K/s? (can't remember) and i seriously doubt anyone would get random disconections.
Only dead fish swim with the stream...
I attended a presentation by a French team three years ago, in which they had actually used feedback scalpels in the operating room.
The doctor usually stops cutting well before any feedback is felt, but sometimes it goes near the feedback and overrides it, because his visual inspection is better than the PET scan used to determine feedback levels. The feedback is simply a way to tell a doctor "stop, are you sure about what you are doing?".
They also had samples of robots sawing bones, opening crania and doing, get this, prostate inspections. By the end of the presentation all the males in the room had placed our hands instinctively covering that sensitive area.
It'd be interesting to see this technology applied to the war industry.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
I swear this came up already in the discussions about SIGGRAPH 2001. The Researchers who came up with this were showing it off. In response to the earlyy post about electrical currents and such, it doesn't have to be an electrical current feedback, it can use any kind of feedback, optical, density, etc. Basically what this device does is it senses the boundary line between two different substances (i.e. water and oil, white of an egg and its yolk...) and gives them a very strong tactile feedback to keep them from pushing through - however one can override the device and still push through.
I got to try it at SIGGRAPH. As an example they had a small clear tank filled with water and something heavier beneath (dunno what it was...obviously nontoxic though). They handed you a pen to stick into the mixture and try as you like there was no way you could determine where one liquid stopped and the next began simply by touch (the liquids were different colors). Next they let you try with the haptic device. A clear plastic or glass wand the same size as the pen which was connected to a robotic arm. Every time the wand touched the surface of the lower liquid, the robotic arm would kick in and keep you from penetrating it with a fairly strong force that would take some serious concious effort to overcome. Basically the device let you literally feel the line of difference between the liquids, which you would otherwise never be able to dectect by touch. In fact, just to prove how well it worked, they would from time to time bump or stir the tank so that there would be visible ripples in the intersection of the two liquids. The haptic device still worked great at letting you feel the bumps and valleys created. The video/slideshow on the wall behind the display showed the hard boiled egg example among other things. The person wielding the scalpel was able in a single quick cut (less than 20 seconds) cut the white off the yolk without cutting the yolk at all. This could allow doctors to cut through a layer of skin or tissue without cutting what was underneath. It doesn't have to be recalibrated for each and every set of materials used, just the one that it is pentrating. It detects differences in properties (such as conductivity) and won't let you penetrate anything but what you set it to allow you to pentrate.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
LL
is just the same as any other sense technology. recorded sound gave us the ability to reproduce sound far away in time and space from it's origin. when touch is on an equal footing to this, it will be so commonplace, you won't think of it any more than a photograph, or tape recording.