Development of a lumbar puncture virtual simulator for medical students training: A preliminary evaluation.

Background: Lumbar puncture is an essential medical procedure whose objective is to obtain cerebrospinal fluid. Lumbar puncture is considered a complex procedure, mainly for novice residents who suffer from stress and low confidence, which may result in harm to the patient.

Methods: The LPVirSim, has been developed in four stages: i) requirements analysis through user-centred design; ii) prototyping of the virtual environment and the haptic component; iii) preliminary tests with Ph.

Artificial Vision Algorithms for Socially Assistive Robot Applications: A Review of the Literature.

Today, computer vision algorithms are very important for different fields and applications, such as closed-circuit television security, health status monitoring, and recognizing a specific person or object and robotics. Regarding this topic, the present paper deals with a recent review of the literature on computer vision algorithms (recognition and tracking of faces, bodies, and objects) oriented towards socially assistive robot applications. The performance, frames per second (FPS) processing speed, and hardware implemented to run the algorithms are highlighted by comparing the available solutions.