NeedleTutor - Chirurgischer Simulator für rückenmarksnahe Nadelinsertionen - NeedleTutor

Medical education is characterized by a time and cost intensive interaction between medical experts and trainees. According to demography the number of cases as well as the costs will increase. These demographic changes and the compliance with the European Working Time Directive have created fewer opportunities for education, since medical doctors will be increasingly engaged with patient care.

There is an increasing demand for additional capacities in medical education and training in Upper Austria, especially triggered by the establishment of the medical faculty at the Johannes Kepler University Linz in the fall of 2014. Innovative educational modalities like medical simulators or multimedia teaching using for example digital anatomy will be an integral part of a high-quality medical education.

Within this project the objective is to develop and to evaluate a hybrid surgical simulator for needle insertions including facet joint and sacroiliac joint injections, epidural injections, nerve root blocks, epidural anesthesia, spinal anesthesia as well as lumbar punctures. Hybrid simulators combine the advantages of computer models and physical patient phantoms. They provide a detailed visualization, enable the usage of original surgical instruments and offer realistic haptic feedback. Further by the use of a magnetic tracking system the position and orientation of the needle relative to the patient phantom is available, which allows to simulate imaging techniques like fluoroscopy or CT. Additional sensors and actuators attached to the needle enables to simulate the loss-of-resistance technique as well as provide objective data for feedback and evaluation of the training