title: A biomechanical analysis of surgeon's gesture in a laparoscopic virtual scenario.
abstract: Minimally invasive surgery (MIS) has become very common in recent years thanks to many advantages that patients can get. However, due to the difficulties surgeons encounter to learn and manage this technique, several training methods and metrics have been proposed in order to, respectively, improve surgeon's abilities and assess his/her surgical skills. In this context, this paper presents a biomechanical analysis method of the surgeon's movements, during exercise involving instrument tip positioning and depth perception in a laparoscopic virtual environment. Estimation of some biomechanical parameters enables us to assess the abilities of surgeons and to distinguish an expert surgeon from a novice. A segmentation algorithm has been defined to deeply investigate the surgeon's movements and to divide them into many sub-movements.
authors.affiliation: CRIM Lab - Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Pisa, Italy. f.cavallo@crim.sssup.it
authors.forename: Filippo
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Cavallo
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Megali
authors.forename: Stefano
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sinigaglia
authors.forename: Oliver
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Tonet
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Dario
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena; D007558:Italy; D010535:Laparoscopy; D009068:Movement; D010820:Physicians; D014584:User-Computer Interface