Internet Brings A Healing Touch

Internet brings a healing touch

Believe it or not, in the next year doctors will be able to feel a patient with his or her own hands from thousands of miles away.

Thanks to a collaborative project between Siriraj Hospital and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), the Internet-based medical tele-analyser will enable medical doctors to eliminate a significant limitation of tele-medicine - the inability to diagnose and treat a patient using physical touch.

For example, at present a tele-medical diagnosis of an abnormal mass such as a breast tumour requires a doctor in a remote location to ask medical staff with the patient to describe the feeling of the mass, said Dr Chailerd Pichitpornchai, an associate professor of physiology at Siriraj Hospital.

"It's like asking someone to describe how salty a taste is. It's really hard to describe to someone exactly what you feel," he said.

With the new equipment, a doctor can press his or her hand on an array of 80 metal rods, which move up and down to create a "virtual tactile sensation" as if the doctor was actually touching the patient.

Almost simultaneously - with speed varying by Internet connection - on the other end, the medical tele-analyser presses a similar array onto the body of the patient.

The system also generates computer images of the patient's body for analysis and recording.

The amount of information needed to generate the virtual tactile sensation is smaller than a standard video stream, thus the transmission of the data is generally smooth and relatively fast, said Manukid Parnichkun, a professor of mechatronics (a discipline including mechanics, robotics and electrical engineering) at AIT.

The system also detects the speed of the Internet connection so the doctor can calibrate his or her movements to the delay.

It also includes a video conferencing function for communication.

Pending some fine-tuning and testing, the tele-analyser should be ready for use at Siriraj this year, Manukid said.

He said while the prototype might look large, unwieldy and not user friendly, to scale it down would add considerably to the expense. When it is completed, his team plans to cover the sensors with artificial skin to improve the tactile sensation.

"If anyone is interested in investing to further develop this machine, they're more than welcome," said Manukid. The Bt5-million project is funded by the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre.

Originally conceived by Dr Chailerd five years ago, Manukid's team at AIT made it into a reality.

Demand for tele-medical procedures in Thailand has been growing with persistent staffing problems upcountry and a limited number of specialists available at certain large hospitals Bangkok, Manukid said.

Consequently a disproportionate number of patients are on waiting lists for treatment at advanced medical facilities such as Siriraj and Ramathibodi hospitals, he said.

--The Nation 2006-04-22