Needle insertion is performed in many clinical and therapeutic procedures. Tissue displacement and needle bending which result from needle-tissue interaction make accurate targeting difficult. For performing physicians to gain essential needle targeting skills, needle insertion simulators can be used for training. An accurate needle bending model is essential for such simulators. These bending ...

BACKGROUND Traditionally, acupuncturists manipulate needles to enhance sensations referred to as de qi or 'acupuncture needle sensation'. Acupuncture needle sensations are complex and quantifying the experience has been difficult. The aim of this crossover study was to measure self-reported needle sensation during deep and bi-directional rotated needling in 15 healthy volunteers. METHODS Each...

INTRODUCTION Our objective was to compare the effectiveness, speed, and complication rate of the traditional manually placed intraosseous (IO) catheter to a mechanical drill-assisted IO catheter by emergency medicine (EM) resident physicians in a training environment. METHODS Twenty-one EM residents participated in a randomized prospective crossover experiment placing 2 intraosseous needles (...

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of needle-insertion depth on the irrigant flow inside a prepared root canal during final irrigation with a syringe and two different needle types using a Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) model. METHODS A validated CFD model was used to simulate irrigant flow from either a side-vented or an open-ended flat 30-G needle positioned i...

tive technique for the percutaneous insertion of large-bore catheters into blood vessels that allowed for the application of angiocatheters for angiography. The Seldinger technique for central venous catheter (CVC) placement is ubiquitous in medical practice and the procedure is well known. Briefly, the procedure involves introducing a percutaneous needle into the vessel, passing a guidewire th...

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to compare the pain levels on opposite sides of the maxilla at needle insertion during delivery of local anesthetic solution and tooth preparation for both conventional and anterior middle superior alveolar (AMSA) technique with the Wand computer-controlled local anesthesia application. MATERIAL AND METHODS Pain scores of 16 patients were evaluated wi...

OBJECTIVE To compare the effects of electro-acupuncture with oral estradiol and superficial needle insertion on hot flushes in postmenopausal women. MATERIAL AND METHODS Forty-five postmenopausal women with vasomotor symptoms were randomized to electro-acupuncture, superficial needle insertion or oral estradiol treatment during 12 weeks, with 6 months' follow-up. The number and severity of fl...

OBJECTIVE To determine the correlation of clinical factors and maternal perceptions of pain with genetic amniocentesis. MATERIAL AND METHOD This prospective study of midtrimester, singleton pregnancies was conducted between February 2007 and March 2008. Study variables included patient dermographics, previous amniocentesis, previous abdominal surgery, maternal anxiety score, abdominal wall th...

Flexible needle insertion for percutaneous therapies is formulated in this paper as a trajectory planning problem of a linear beam, supported by virtual springs. Using this simplified model, the forward and inverse kinematics of the needle is solved analytically, providing a way for simulation and path planning in real-time. Using the inverse kinematics, the required needle basis trajectory can...

N eedle insertion is a critical aspect of many medical treatments, diagnostic methods, and scientific studies, and is considered to be one of the simplest and most minimally invasive medical procedures. Robot-assisted needle steering has the potential to improve the effectiveness of existing medical procedures and enable new ones by allowing increased accuracy through more dexterous control of ...