Abstract
Epidural anesthesia is one of the regional anesthesias used for the abdominal surgery and the obstetric analgesia for labor. An anesthesiologist need to place the needle tip at the epidural space precisely. It is important to develop 1) a clinically acceptable reaction force sensing system, 2) a design criteria of the needle tip by a comparative phantom study and a numerical simulation, and 3) an intelligent puncture device with force feedback loop. A phantom study by the author stated in this article.
