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.