Date: Jan 15, 2010 Source: ARMY SBIR Success Stories (
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Compartment syndrome is the compression of nerves and blood vessels that leads to muscle and nerve damage and problems with blood flow, and can result in loss of limb and even life; recognizing and treating this syndrome is made more difficult due to the nature of trauma.
To address this critical need, Touch of Life Technologies (ToLTech) produced a highly adaptable virtual environment for training, diagnosis, and treatment of compartment syndrome. Detailed anatomic models were developed from the Visible Human Dataset created at the University of Colorado.
Morphology, pathology, and posture of the models can be altered to produce endless variety. Haptic feedback, collocated with 3-D stereo graphics, gives the sensation of interacting with the resulting virtual patients. The hardware to collocate the haptic sensation with the graphic representation (patent pending to ToLTech) produces the highest fidelity computer-generated stereo graphics known.
The resulting virtual environment can be used to present training experiences for most medical specialties. Fasciotomy, regional anesthesia, joint injections, and ophthalmic skills (including stitching) are among the initial applications.
All applications contain a mentor and training program that utilizes sophisticated and objective measures to guide, score, and critique the trainees as they work toward proficiency. While the platform common to each of these applications is slated for release in the spring of 2010, ToLTech has already sold multiple units for use in training muscle injections for treatment of cervical dystonia.
Phase III Impacts
Touch of Life Technologies has received $170K in sales of the Compartment Syndrome Simulator to the Department of Defense and Primes; $211K in sales to the private sector; and $250K in investments from the private sector. Additionally, as part of the Phase II effort, a DVD that demonstrates fasciotomies was created in partnership with the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. The DVD is available for distribution to the Army, DoD, and our allies worldwide.
