Noninvasive Method and Metric for Monitoring Lung Condition.

For hospitalized patients with pulmonary conditions, the onset of respiratory decline can occur unnoticed, due to the absence of a way to continuously and noninvasively monitor lung condition. Based on the relationship between lung volume and pleural pressure, we hypothesized that the time delay (∆t) between the start of a respiratory cycle and the occurrence of lung sounds associated with inspiration would correlate with lung volume. Additionally, we developed a re-search tool, consisting of a respiration belt, digital stethoscope, data collection system and MATLAB algorithm, to measure this delay.

MIT Emergency-Vent: An Automated Resuscitator Bag for the COVID-19 Crisis.

MIT's Emergency-Vent Project was launched in March 2020 to develop safe guidance and a reference design for a bridge ventilator that could be rapidly produced in a distributed manner worldwide. The system uses a novel servo-based robotic gripper to automate the squeezing of a manual resuscitator bag evenly from both sides to provide ventilation according to clinically specified parameters. In just one month, the team designed and built prototype ventilators, tested them in a series of porcine trials, and collaborated with industry partners to enable mass production.

A Soft Robotic Sleeve for Compression Therapy of the Lower Limb.

'We present the development of a soft robotic-inspired device for lower limb compression therapy with application in the treatment of lymphedema. This device integrates the control capabilities of pneumatic devices with the wearability and low cost of compression garments. The design consists of a three-layered soft robotic sleeve that ensures safe skin contact, controls compression, and secures the device to the patient limb.

Design of a Wearable System to Capture Physiological Data to Monitor Surgeons' Stress During Surgery.

The mental and physiological stress experienced by surgeons during operations has been identified as an important human factor that impacts surgical performance and patient safety. It is crucial to objectively measure and quantify surgeons' stress via physiological signals in order to enhance the understanding of how stress contributes to surgical outcomes. Current clinical and consumer devices for monitoring bio signals are not well adapted for use in the operating room; therefore, we designed an unobtrusive system, that measures select signals that correlate with stress and stores the data for integration into a data processing pipeline.

Design and Applicability of a Mechanical Impedance Sensor for Vein Penetration Detection.

Intravenous needle insertion is typically conducted manually, with needles guided into vessels by feel while looking for a brief flash of blood. This process is imprecise and leads to mispositioned needles, multiple reinsertion attempts, increased procedure time and higher costs for the hospital. We present a method for indicating that the needle has reached the vein by measuring the change in mechanical impedance of the needle as it passes through different tissue layers.

Center of Gravity Tracker for Operator Fatigue Detection.

Driver fatigue is a cause of serious accidents for heavy machinery operators. Monitoring operator position, as indicated by their Center of Gravity (CoG), may be a means to non-invasively detect driver fatigue. We prototyped a research tool that tracks CoG from four sensors located within the legs of a seat, and validated its accuracy and precision.

Design of a Precision Medication Dispenser: Preventing Overdose by Increasing Accuracy and Precision of Dosage.

Liquid medication overdose in pediatric patients results in over 70000 visits to the emergency room yearly in the USA. Various studies have demonstrated that the root cause of this high incidence is due to user and device error in dose measurement. The standard measuring cup and syringe suffer from the challenge of accurately measuring and dispensing viscous liquids, which comprise the majority of children's medication formulations.

Music and the brain - design of an MEG compatible piano.

Magnetoencephalography (MEG) neuroimaging has been used to study subjects' responses when listening to music, but research into the effects of playing music has been limited by the lack of MEG compatible instruments that can operate in a magnetically shielded environment without creating electromagnetic interference. This paper describes the design and preliminary testing of an MEG compatible piano keyboard with 25 full size keys that employs a novel 3-state optical encoder design and electronics to provide realistic velocity-controlled volume modulation. This instrument will allow researchers to study musical performance on a finer timescale than fMRI and enable a range of MEG studies.

Digital Magnifying Glasses for Low-Vision Learners: Bringing Assistive Technologies to the Developing World.

A student squinting to see the board or holding a textbook inches from his or her nose often provides the first indication of a visual impairment. For most, the cause is a refractive error, readily correctible with eyeglasses. However, for an estimated 40-65 million people globally with functional low vision, the fuzzy words pose a lifelong challenge.

Wearable optical-digital assistive device for low vision students.

People with low vision have limited residual vision that can be greatly enhanced through high levels of magnification. Current assistive technologies are tailored for far field or near field magnification but not both. In collaboration with L.

Low vision system for rapid near- and far-field magnification switching.

People suffering from low vision, a condition caused by a variety of eye-related diseases and/or disorders, find their ability to read greatly improved when text is magnified between 2 and 6 times. Assistive devices currently on the market are either geared towards reading text far away (~20 ft.) or very near (~2 ft.

An overview of systems for CT- and MRI-guided percutaneous needle placement in the thorax and abdomen.

Background: Minimally invasive biopsies, drainages and therapies in the soft tissue organs of the thorax and abdomen are typically performed through a needle, which is inserted percutaneously to reach the target area. The conventional workflow for needle placement employs an iterative freehand technique. This article provides an overview of needle-placement systems developed to improve this method.

Classroom to Clinic: Merging Education and Research to Efficiently Prototype Medical Devices.

Innovation in patient care requires both clinical and technical skills, and this paper presents the methods and outcomes of a nine-year, clinical-academic collaboration to develop and evaluate new medical device technologies, while teaching mechanical engineering. Together, over the course of a single semester, seniors, graduate students, and clinicians conceive, design, build, and test proof-of-concept prototypes. Projects initiated in the course have generated intellectual property and peer-reviewed publications, stimulated further research, furthered student and clinician careers, and resulted in technology licenses and start-up ventures.

Smaller and deeper lesions increase the number of acquired scan series in computed tomography-guided lung biopsy.

Purpose: To determine factors influencing the number of acquired scan series and subsequently the radiation dose and time during computed tomography (CT)-guided lung biopsies.

Materials And Methods: This Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act-compliant, institutional review board-approved, retrospective study reviewed 50 consecutive procedures. Each procedure was separated into the following steps: trajectory planning, needle placement, needle insertion (extrapulmonary and intrapulmonary), and sampling and follow-up.

Human factors design for intuitive operation of a low-cost, image-guided, tele-robotic biopsy assistant.

This paper details the design and interface development of Robopsy, an economical, tele-operated, patient mounted, disposable needle guidance and insertion system to assist radiologists in performing minimally invasive percutaneous biopsies remotely under CT guidance. Testing with a phantom in a realistic surgical setting was conducted to ensure that the interface was intuitive and facilitated smooth integration of the device into current procedure. Ease of learning and operation is critical in order to encourage rapid adoption of this new medical robotics model.