Surgical Robot Allows Remote Stroke Treatment
From MIT engineers: “[The robot] incorporates an articulated robotic arm with an actuating magnet on the end, which sits beside the patient’s head as they lie on an operating table at their local hospital. There’s also a motorized linear drive unit, which pushes or pulls on the same type of wire used in a conventional endovascular intervention (although the wire does have a magnetically responsive tip). The surgeon – who is located at a larger, more central hospital – utilizes a mouse to advance and retract the wire within the blood vessel, plus they use a joystick to move the arm and rotate the magnet. Doing the latter allows them to remotely steer the wire from outside the patient’s body, since the direction and strength of the magnet’s pull on the wire varies as it rotates relative to the wire.” MORE
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