Medical Devices

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Vanderbilt researchers have developed a novel method for enabling tentacle-like robots to reach into tight spaces in manufacturing or medical applications. This is useful for industrial inspection tasks, assembly of products like airplane wings with complex geometry, or making medical endoscopes reach places in the body they cannot reach today. The new invention involves routing actuation wires along a flexible arm through curved paths along the robot

Vanderbilt engineers have designed and built a device that improves the accuracy of image-guidance systems (IGS) during surgery. The device creates a custom,  non-slip fit over the head and provides a rigid platform for attaching optical tracking markers to the patient, which is a critical component of image-guided neurosurgical procedures. The device can be used to improve the accuracy of IGS in other areas of the anatomy as well.

An assistive device for individuals with upper extremity neuromuscular deficit has been developed by researchers at Vanderbilt. This device is specifically designed for patients having hemiplegia following stroke, incomplete spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis, and other disabilities and conditions, who may have severe muscle weakness or inability to fully control an upper limb. In order to facilitate use of the upper limb, the patient can wear the device as a substitute for or a supplement to the patient's volitional movement.

Vanderbilt University researchers have developed a technology that uses spatially offset Raman spectroscopy to obtain depth-resolved information from the margins of tumors. This helps to determine positive or negative tumor margins in applications such as breast lumpectomy, and the technology is currently being investigated for breast cancer margin detection.