Measurement of palpation motion using prostate examination simulator and motion capture system

Abstract

In this paper, palpation motions for prostate gland were measured using a prostate examination simulator and motion capture system in order to clarify effective motions for accurate diagnosis. It is difficult for students to learn how to make a palpation motion and what information to obtain during palpation. Quantitative evaluation of palpation motion is demanded. Firstly, the prostate examination simulator was developed and six kinds of prostate models, including a healthy model, a cancer model, and a hypertrophy model, were prepared as palpation samples. Next, by using these measurement system, prostate palpation motions by a expert and five students were measured. While participants diagnose the presence of lumps in prostate models and the size of prostate, fingertip position and force applying on prostate models were measured. From the results, it was confirmed that the expert diagnosed the state of prostate glands more accurately. Then motion analyses for trajectory of fingertip, contact force, and finger posture were carried out and motion characteristics between the expert and students were compared. From these results about both of trajectory and contact force, and it was found that the expert commonly explored over the whole of models by relative larger contact force than students do, it was suggested that the expert simultaneously explores presence of lumps and the shape of prostate. And from the results of analysis on finger posture, it was found that palpating the entire prostate with the fingertip is effective. As a results, the motion characteristics of the expert were extracted by using the developed system.

Keywords

• palpation
• prostate gland
• motion analysis
• measurement
• finger posture
• simulator