Current
State of the Art:
Many health profession students are inexperienced in breast examination
skills. As a result, they lack
confidence and can score poorly on initial breast exam tests. This has occurred in large part due to a
lack of sophisticated training equipment available. Previously, students would examine
silicone breasts without sensors for abnormalities. Over the past decade, however, breast
simulators have been evolving. The
newest models are fitted with sensors that can give students feedback on whether
they're doing an exam properly or not, but are still being developed.
Disadvantages
with the Current Art:
Silicone breasts, without sensors, for breast examination testing do not
provide feedback as to how much pressure/force a student is applying when
searching for breast abnormalities.
As result, the practice equipment does not provide a student with all of
the necessary feedback in order for the student to master their breast
examination skills in a test environment.
Advantages of the Invention:
The invention employs force sensors and video to provide the student with
real time, objective feedback of his or her exam performance in greater detail
and realism than current methods.
The video aspect is important.
One color seeing and one infrared seeing camera are placed above the
simulated anatomy (i.e. breast).
These cameras provide color and infrared video streams of the student’s
examination in real time. The
related data (pressure and location) can also be converted to numerical models
to quantify examination performance.
Patent
Status: PCT
Filed
Inventors: David Lind, Benjamin Lok, and Aaron
Kotranza
Case
Number: GHSU
2010-025