Abstract
Our group at Bristol Robotics Laboratory has been working on a new robotic system for fracture surgery that has been previously reported [1]. The robotic system is being developed for distal femur fractures and features a robot that manipulates the small fracture fragments through small percutaneous incisions and a robot that re-aligns the long bones. The robots controller design relies on accurate and bounded force and position parameters for which we require real surgical data. This paper reports preliminary findings of forces and torques applied during bone and soft tissue manipulation in typical orthopaedic surgery procedures. Using customised orthopaedic surgical tools we have collected data from a range of orthopaedic surgical procedures at Bristol Royal Infirmary, UK. Maximum forces and torques encountered during fracture manipulation which involved proximal femur and soft tissue distraction around it and reduction of neck of femur fractures have been recorded and further analysed in conjunction with accompanying image recordings. Using this data we are establishing a set of technical requirements for creating safe and dynamically stable minimally invasive robot-assisted fracture surgery (RAFS) systems.
Highlights
There is an increased interest in the medical community for minimally invasive surgery (MIS), in which the surgeon manipulates instruments inserted into the patient through small incisions
A formal verification process has been conducted for checking the insulation parameters according to clause 4.10 of IEC60601-1 given that the device is classified as a Safety Extra-Low Voltage (SELV)
In this work we presented the experimental setup, data collected and preliminary analysis of forces applied during soft tissue and bone manipulation in typical orthopaedic surgery
Summary
There is an increased interest in the medical community for minimally invasive surgery (MIS), in which the surgeon manipulates instruments inserted into the patient through small incisions. There are benefits both for the patient’s outcome (lower risk of infection, less soft tissue damage, less blood lose) as well as for the health systems supporting the operation (shorter hospital stays and lower re-hospitalisation risks due to complications). In MIS, the surgeon has no direct contact with internal body parts haptic and tactile feedback in this interaction is minimum or non-existent This feedback is crucial for better performing the procedure in question and a growing body of research is focusing on providing the surgeons with this information via some form of force/torque sensing method.
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