Development of the medical systems using mechatronics for improvement of accuracy and quantitative reliability of medical treatments

Abstract

In many medical fields, the result of operation or diagnosis depends on a doctor's empirical value. As you know, doctor's medical experiences vary appreciably from person to person and it causes health disparities. To eliminate health disparities from our society, the author has been developing some medical devices using mechatronics to improvement the accuracy and quantitative reliability of medical treatments like operation or diagnosis. In this paper, the author introduced two medical devices. The first device is arm-holding manipulator “EXPERT” which aims to reduce the surgeon fatigue and realize intuitive operation support in microscopic neurosurgery. The developed system was successfully used in 9 clinical cases at Shinshu University School of Medicine, STA-MCA anastomosis, meningioma removals, and aneurysmal clipping treatments. The second device is orthopaedic physical examination assisting system that aims to improve accuracy and reproducibility of knee laxity diagnosis. The examination result of posterior drawer test with the developed system showed that the examination accuracy was significantly improved in all evaluation parameters.