Development of Virtual Pulse Simulation for Pulse Diagnosis Studies

Moragot Kandee,Poonpong Boonbrahm,Valla Tantayotai

doi:10.3991/ijim.v12i7.9640

Abstract

Pulse signals can be used to observe the early sign of patients' health problems. From medical researches, monitoring the characteristic of arterial pulse waveform shows some risk indicator of specific diseases, e.g., hypertension, cardiovascular and heart failure diseases. A simple way to get arterial pulse wave is by using fingers to touch the radial artery position on the wrist. In the traditional Chinese medicine, a physician can use the information of arterial pulse wave-form to identify diseases based on the physician’s ability and experience. The improvement of the skill in pulse measurement can be improved by training using various kinds of pulses that represent each disease. This paper proposes a development of the virtual pulse simulation using Augmented Reality (AR) and haptic device for pulse diagnosis studies under various situations. The pulse simulation generates arterial pulse waveforms based on Sine and Gaussian functions. In this study, the mathematical model can generate the pulse wave like human pulse by setting up specific parameters. We can generate pulse waveform which representing different kinds and states of diseases by varying the mathematical model and parameters such as pulse rate or pulse pressure. The features of this work include how to generate force feedback from the mathematical models using the haptic device and how the virtual 3D can display visual feedback. The pulse simulation is useful for the health sciences students, especially the nursing students in training to identify some diseases. The evaluation of the system was carried out by first-year nursing students regarding usability, satisfaction, and performance.

Highlights

A study of pulse measurement is a basic learning for medical and nursing students because the pulse is a vital sign that can use to identify the condition of the vascular system and patients’ symptoms
From the results of experiment 1, an average pulse rate that was measured by the wearable smart band is 71 BPM, while an average of the traditional pulse measurement method is 70 BPM which is 1.41% of an average value error in the pulse measurement and 4.37 of an average standard deviation score
We have proposed the development of the virtual pulse simulation using Augmented Reality (AR) and haptic device for pulse diagnosis studies under various situations

Summary

Introduction

A study of pulse measurement is a basic learning for medical and nursing students because the pulse is a vital sign that can use to identify the condition of the vascular system and patients’ symptoms. When the students have experience and skills in the pulse measurement, they can use diagnose some diseases faster and use pulse data for iJIM ‒ Vol 12, No 7, 2018. For above reasons the training of pulse measurement is needed to improve the skill of nursing students. The nursing students practice radial pulse measurement with their friends by using their fingers in examinations. By that way, they can only experience the regular pulse (such as heart rate, rhythm, and amplitude). The students hardly have experience in examining the irregular pulse. The pulse simulation can provide the various situations of pulses and unlimited repetitions for the training

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Conclusion