{"id":113615,"date":"2022-01-11T12:06:53","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T16:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/?p=113615"},"modified":"2023-02-17T14:54:20","modified_gmt":"2023-02-17T19:54:20","slug":"getting-a-feel-for-surgery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/2022\/01\/11\/getting-a-feel-for-surgery\/","title":{"rendered":"Medical Devices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sheila Russo is training tomorrow\u2019s medical robotics pioneers<\/strong><\/h3>\n

By Patrick L. Kennedy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Robotic-assisted surgery is not new. For two decades, some doctors have been performing surgeries from a console in another room, remotely controlling a robot that puts scalpel to flesh. Surgeons who use the technology say it allows for more precise movements and reduces the risk of infection.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s a drawback: the lack of haptic feel. \u201cYou can\u2019t tell if you\u2019re applying too much pressure,\u201d says Assistant Professor Sheila Russo<\/a> (ME<\/a>, MSE<\/a>). \u201cYou can\u2019t tell if you\u2019re grasping an organ too hard. It\u2019s like playing a video game with a joystick.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"
Sheila Russo (ME, MSE)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

To solve this problem, students in Russo\u2019s graduate course Medical Robotics develop robotic solutions to restore haptic feedback\u2014sleeves that will squeeze a surgeon\u2019s hands to alert them when it\u2019s time to halt. \u201cWhen the robot is exerting a force on an organ or tissue, that force will be transmitted onto the forearm or the hand of the surgeon,\u201d says Russo.<\/p>\n

Last semester, for example, one team built a haptic feedback robotic sleeve that uses an electro-pneumatic pump to apply pressure to the surgeon\u2019s wrist. The wrist pump is hooked up to a circuit board that is worn on a belt around the doctor\u2019s waist and receives signals from the surgery robot. In addition to the tactile stimulus, the device includes a light that flashes red if too much force is being applied.<\/p>\n

Says student team member Franco Julia Wise, \u201cSay you\u2019re performing an endoscopy. To avoid harming tissue this will provide a multi-modal way of receiving feedback: visual as well as touch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such a robot could be adjusted for different types of surgery, notes Russo. \u201cIf you\u2019re operating on the liver or a nerve, the surgeon would know how much force you could safely apply,\u201d and could tune the device accordingly.<\/p>\n

To fulfill the course assignment, the team focused on making the robot portable, comfortable, easy to use, and cheap. \u201cIt\u2019s battery-powered, so you could walk around the room wearing this,\u201d says student Nash Elder. \u201cAnd it\u2019s affordable. All of this would cost something like $50.\u201d<\/p>\n

That price would put the device within reach for smaller hospitals, the students point out, thereby spreading the benefits to more surgeons and patients.<\/p>\n

\"ENGIn a second hands-on project assignment, students made a cable-driven, soft robotic finger for robotic-assisted rehabilitation. This could be used to reduce mobility impairments and other types of disabilities caused by neurodegenerative diseases, stroke, or accidents. In the future, says Russo, the students could use the same principles to build an entire robotic hand or an exoskeleton.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve become pretty independent,\u201d says Russo. \u201cI\u2019m teaching them to multi-task.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really did get experience in everything,\u201d says Elder. \u201cThere\u2019s the coding, the electronics, the mechanical engineering. These are complex projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to technical skills, students learn how to pitch their own concepts and ideas and apply for funding. \u201cThis course is designed to give students experience with the initiation of a new research project in the field of medical robotics, so it culminates with the students proposing and building their own medical robot that can solve a specific clinical problem they are passionate about,\u201d says Russo. \u00a0\u201cThey\u2019re in grad school because they want to join industry or academia\u2014either way, to do research and development\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"ENG<\/p>\n

Russo knows a thing or two about R&D. Her latest publication, in Soft Robotics<\/em>, presents a soft-robotic bronchoscope able to explore deep into the periphery of the lung, finding cancers that currently can go undetected.<\/p>\n

Students say that Russo\u2019s class has turned soft robotics for medical applications into a career prospect that is both realistic and appealing.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot many people can say they built a medical robotic device in the classroom,\u201d says Wise. \u201cI came to graduate school to change the path I was on and do something with more of a humanitarian focus, and this is exactly the class to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Building robotics for surgery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2662,"featured_media":113711,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[236,908],"tags":[737,246,738],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113615"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113615"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113615\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137122,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113615\/revisions\/137122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}