BACKGROUND Although the effectiveness of manipulative therapy for treating back and neck pain has been demonstrated, the validity of many of the procedures used to detect joint dysfunction has not been confirmed. Practitioners of manual medicine frequently employ motion palpation as a diagnostic tool, despite conflicting evidence regarding its utility and reliability. The introduction of variou...

Breast cancer is the most common type of worldwide. A robotic system performing autonomous breast palpation can make a significant impact on related health sector However, robot programming for palpating with different geometries very complex and unsolved. Robot learning from demonstrations (LfD) reduces time cost. available LfD are lacking modelling manipulation path/trajectory as an explicit ...

BACKGROUND Whole breast irradiation after conserving surgery for breast cancer requires precise definition of the target volume. The standard approach uses computed tomography (CT) images. However, since fatty breast and non-breast tissues have similar electronic densities, difficulties in differentiating between them hamper breast volume delineation. To overcome this limitation the breast cont...

Palpation process using elastography has been studied for malign tissue localization. This technique has been applied in ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging modalities. However, the ultrasound features make it suitable for roboticassisted systems in real-time [1], [2], [3]. The basic principle of ultrasound elastography is based on quasi-static mechanic compression of a target tissue with...

In this paper we propose a software-based approach to simulate the haptics of the human pulse. This effect can then be interactively explored by virtual palpation. The algorithm features a flexible, userdefined setup. In addition the simulation takes dynamic parameters into account and allows for many different use cases.

Mechanical properties of biological tissue for both histological and pathological considerations are often required in disease diagnostics. Such properties can be simulated and explored with haptic technology. Development of cost effective haptic-based simulators and their introduction in the minimally invasive surgery learning cycle is still in its infancy. Receiving pre-training in a core set...

We present a magnetic resonance elastography approach for tissue characterization that is inspired by seismic noise correlation and time reversal. The idea consists of extracting the elasticity from the natural shear waves in living tissues that are caused by cardiac motion, blood pulsatility, and any muscle activity. In contrast to other magnetic resonance elastography techniques, this noise-b...