Regional Anaesthesia Simulator and Assistant (RASimAs): Medical Image Processing Supporting Anaesthesiologists in Training and Performance of Local Blocks

Abstract

In worldwide health systems, regional anaesthesia (RA) is not applied as frequent as it should be and benefits to patient's cure and cost savings are wasted. The Regional Anaesthesia Simulator and Assistant (RASimAs) project combines image processing, physiological models, and virtual reality to support ultrasound-guided and electrical nerve stimulation-guided RA. The simulator component maps patient-specific data to general models and composes virtual reality environments using a haptic device coupled with the needle. The assistant component provides enhanced feedback mapping online-acquired ultrasound data. Regarding image processing, RASimAs aims at acquiring subject data for model development and composing a library of segmentation and registration algorithms to provide localized, patient-specific, material properties within anatomical context. Subject posing and extrapolation of body regions without patient-specific data are central challenges.