Telepresence in Medicine – An Over View

Abstract

Telepresenceis a set of technologieswhich allow a person to feel as if they were present, to give the appearance of being present, or to have an effect, via telerobotics, at a place other than their true location.From the telepresence,Telemedicine is one of the latest technologies that provide an efficient way of performing surgery from a different location.Using this idea, it is applied to the medical field in order to help the doctors / surgeons perform surgeries effectively. This type of surgery allows the surgeon to perform a "virtual" operation on the patient. This is accomplished by a surgeon console and a remote surgical unit, which consists of two computer-controlled by robot arms.Using telemedicine, most ofthe surgeries can be performed by usingminimally invasive surgical techniques, in which there is only small incision site for instrument entry. As a result, this causes less pain to the patients and there will be less tissue trauma, thus reducing hospitalization time and enhancing recovery.Extending the above idea, surgery can actually be operated by a surgeon from large distances. For example, a surgeon in the USA can perform a heart surgery on a patient in India.This is called Remote Operation. The physician can simply look at the electronic video image and remove the internal organs without actually touching them. Again, this technique can be applied in the military area in which the surgeons can perform operations on the injured soldiers without endangering their own lives.With the ever developing computer technology, in future, with better and more high tech remote operation technique, surgeons can effectively perform surgery on people all over the world, especially in the backward and remote places, where a telerobot can ensure the patients to undergo operation without flying to, or the surgeons flying from the other part of the world.