VMG News

Franck Vidal, Serban Pop and Nigel John have been successful in a European Union Framework 7 project application called: Regional Anaesthesia Simulator and Assistance (RASimAs). Regional anaesthesia (RA) is a medical procedure to provide anaesthesia (absence of feeling, including pain) to allow a surgical operation, or provide post-operative pain relief.

The European Union has awarded Euro 3.3 Million to a multidisciplinary consortium of computer scientists and clinicians to increase the application, the effectiveness and the success rates of RA and furthermore the diffusion of the method into a broader clinical use through the development of patient-specific models for. Two independent but complementary systems will be developed, one for training and one for guidance: a patient-specific Regional Anaesthesia Simulator (RASim)enhanced with ultrasound guidance; and a Regional Anaesthesia Assistant (RAAs), which will assist the physicians to localize the nerve during the actual procedure.

The RASimAs project will combine both, offering the possibility of training in the RA technique during the training phase of the physician and providing assistance during the clinical application of regional anaesthesia at later stages. The project is coordinated by RWTH Aachen University in Germany, and as well as Bangor University other partners include INRIA (France), FORTH (Greece), Sintef (Norway) and SenseGraphics (Sweden).