Kinect trialled by surgeons

Kinect trialled by surgeons

Thu 31 May 2012 2:28pm GMT / 10:28am EDT / 7:28am PDT
Hardware

Microsoft's motion control used in keyhole surgery in London

London surgeons are currently trialling Kinect's motion control capabilities at St Thomas' hospital in London. The devices are being used during keyhole surgery to allow surgeons to manipulate images with voice and gestures.

"Until recently I was shouting out across the operating theatre to tell someone to go up, down, left right," surgeon Tom Carrell told the BBC.

"But with the Kinect I'm able to get the position that I want quickly - and also without me having to handle non-sterile things like a keyboard or mouse during the procedure."

The specialist programme was developed thanks to a collaboration between Microsoft research and Lancaster university.

"This is a lovely example of a successful interdisciplinary research project, combining the technical skills of computer scientists with a social scientific and medical expertise that ensures the new technology resonates with the way in which surgeons actually do their work," added the university's Dr Mark Rouncefield.

4 Comments

Dave Herod
Senior Programmer

This is a bit misleading. Using Kinect *in the same room as* keyhole surgery isn't exactly the same as "used in keyhole surgery", if you ask me. I had worrying visions of someone using Kinect to do the surgery itself, and there's no way in a million years I'd ever let a surgeon near me if he was relying on that!

Edited 1 times. Last edit by Dave Herod on 31st May 2012 3:49pm

Posted:11 months ago

#1

Tim Carter
Designer - Writer - Producer

It sounds like you are a medical expert Dave.

How about this?: If using a Kinect (or Kinect-like) system enabled an increase in speed, safety and efficiency of surgery because supporting actions could now be done with hand-gestures - instead of asking nurses to do them (since a surgeon cannot touch unsterile things in the OR) - would you then approve?

Posted:11 months ago

#2

Brian Smith
Artist

I do hope their kinect is better than mine. It's a real pain trying to use gestures and voice at the same time imo. At first I thought it was the perfect antidote to the issues with either speech or gestures alone. Unfortunately though they just seem to serve to confuse each other. I'd hate to think the doc had just called up the 'brain emergency' page only to find it exiting and shutting down instead. Not helpful.

Posted:11 months ago

#3

Rodney Smith
Developer

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Posted:11 months ago

#4

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