Evaluation of obstetric gestures: an approach based on the curvature of 3-D positions

Evaluation of medical gestures based on a global performance index

This paper presents a method to evaluate medical gestures. The objective is to objectively assess a gesture carried out by novice doctors. The proposed method is based on the study of the curvature of the 3D gesture and provide a global performance index for one manipulation. The study of the number of peaks on the curvature indicates if the gesture is smooth or not. The application is the obstetric gestures linked to the forceps use but the method can be applied to different gestures without loss of generality. Seven residents carried out 30 forceps blade placements. The results clearly show a difference between the gestures carried out. This highlights the difficulty of the gesture according to the fetal head presentation.

Evaluation of obstetric gestures: an approach based on the curvature of quaternions

This paper presents a method to evaluate a gesture carried out by a resident obstetrician by comparing it to a gesture carried out by an expert obstetrician. The studied gesture is the forceps blade placement. Resident paths were recorded on a childbirth simulator while placing forceps blades instrumented with six degrees of freedom sensors. The path is characterized by the positions and the orientations. In this paper we particularly focus on the orientations. Forceps orientations are expressed in the quaternion unit space and the curvature of quaternion path is compared by correlation to a reference defined by an expert. Residents have been trained on a simulator and their gestures are evaluated by comparing their orientation path curvatures to reference path curvatures. Quantitative results confirm the qualitative analysis, residents become more similar to the reference while training on simulator.