Design And Research Of The Simulator For Abdominal Palpation Teaching

Abdominal palpation is a method by pressing the diseased and normal area of abdomen, according to the pain response judging the abdominal disease, which has a very important role in identification of abdominal and diagnosis of disease. Abdominal palpation is one of the important and basic skills and difficulties of diagnostics teaching in medical teaching. With introduction of the simulation technology in medical education, the use of the medical model instead of real patients for medical education has become an effective way to train medical students’ clinical skills.The traditional simulator for abdominal palpation teaching uses the motor-driven mechanism. Although it has advantages like good control, it is quite different from the real patients. The use of airbags as simulate organ, can simulate abdomen abdominal tension、 tenderness、rebound phenomenon during abdominal palpation. In order to meet the requirements of abdominal palpation skills, we developed a new type of pneumatic and reactive simulator for abdominal palpation teaching, designed of simulate organ and embedded control system, simulation and experiment its mechanical and control characteristics.Firstly, according to the requirements of abdominal palpation, we analyze the functional requirements of simulator for abdominal palpation teaching, proposing the overall program of simulator for abdominal palpation teaching, and designing the pneumatic system of simulator for abdominal palpation teaching.Secondly, we designed the embedded control system, including the upper/lower computer control chip select、circuit design of power module、voice module、electric proportional valve module、sensor module etc.Thirdly, we developed the software system of simulator for abdominal palpation teaching, including upper computer operating system, upper computer applications、control algorithms、lower computer program design etc.Then, we developed the mathematical modeling of simulate organ. The influence rule that design parameters of simulate organ with surface hardness was analyzed in MATLAB and ANSYS software, designed simulate organ by results of the analysis.Finally, analyzed and experimental research mechanical properties of simulate organ, and experimental research the control characteristic of its internal pressure of real-time control、delay control、tenderness and rebound tenderness experimental.The results showed that:The simulator can simulate abdominal tension、tenderness and rebound tenderness、with memory、learning and error correction capabilities. The study can provide guidance to the development of teaching tools of abdominal palpation skills study.