Robotic Surgical Methods

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ROBOTIC APPLICATIONS IN MEDICAL SCIENCE

The continuous and rapid advancement of robotic science has had a severe impact in medical practice, transforming traditional medical routine. Robots made their first appearance in medicine in 1987 by performing the first laparoscopic surgery, a cholecystectomy. Since then, several medical methods have been developed with the aid of robots. These new methods have significant advantages in comparison with older methods, by being minimally invasive, as incisions are smaller, recuperation time is shorter and the risk of infection has almost been diminished. Typical examples include modern robotic surgical systems like da Vinci Surgical System and robotic limbs like prosthetic missing body parts.

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Da Vinci is made by the American company Intuitive Surgical and was approved by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2000. It has a large number of clinical uses, which include common operations like gynecologic, cardiac surgical procedures and prostatectomies. The da Vinci System consists of two discrete parts, a surgeon’s console and a patient-side cart. The patient-side cart consist of four interactive robotic arms that are controlled from the surgeon’s console, three of which are for tools that can hold objects or can act as some common surgical tools, like lancets. The surgeon remotely controls these four robotic arms having no physical contact with the patient. The image that surgeon sees at the console has no significant difference from reality, as the unique 3D vision system can magnify the operation area ten times its normal size. The robotic arms are specifically designed in order to extend the natural range of motion of the human hand, with motion scaling and tremor reduction refining even more the surgeon’s hand movements. The da Vinci System also includes various other safety features engineered to minimize human error possibility. The da Vinci System has numerous more advantages when compared with conventional approaches, for example, the surgeon can operate from a seated position at the console, having eyes and hands positioned in line with the instruments and the …show more content…

One way, the so-called myoelectric, is by listening to muscles that continue to exist in the residual limb - the remaining limb - and which the patient can voluntarily contract. When muscles contract, they generate small electrical signals that can be detected by electrodes placed on the surface of the skin. Another more advanced method is targeted muscle reinnervation (TMR). In this technique the amputated motor nerves that used to control the muscles on the amputated limb are surgically redirected to control a small portion of a large intact muscle, elsewhere in the body. For instance, the same nerves that previously controlled the patient’s arm might be rerouted so that they reinnervate a small area of the chest muscle. After this procedure, when the patient thinks about moving his amputated arm, a small region of his chest muscle will contract instead. These contractions can be detected by appropriate sensors and used to control movement of the prosthetic device. A third even more advanced method is by using neural interfacing technology, in other words by listening and communicating directly with the brain and nerves. For example, micro-scale electrodes can be implanted in the brain to intercept motor command signals, such that when a patient tries to move his missing limb these signals are used to control the prosthetic

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