Motion Based Feedback System for Endotracheal Intubation

Endotracheal intubation is a common procedure that is performed for patients who are unable to adequately breathe. This procedure is often more successful when performed inside a hospital, but there are emergency situations that require out of hospital intubations. For both in-hospital and out of hospital, the statistics for flawed and failed intubation attempts are high. The primary risk associated with prolonged and failed intubation attempts are hypoxia leading to brain injury and death. To mitigate these risks, a motion-based feedback training system is proposed. Experimentation is performed to track the position of a laryngoscope during a manikin intubation. It was found that during intubation there was a significant range of motion in the x direction up to 120 and 114 mm. Also, it was found that for one trial the tortuosity value was significantly higher at 75. Overall results show that significant delicate movements are necessary, and that user movement varied between cases.