Fabric Force Sensors for the Clinical Breast Examination Simulator

Sensor enabled simulators may help in training and assessing clinical skill. Their are imitations on the locations current sensors can be placed without interfering with the clinical examination. In this study novel fabric force sensors were developed and tested. These sensors are soft and flexible and undetectable when placed in different locations in the simulator. Five sensors were added to our current sensor enabled breast simulator. Eight participants performed the clinical breast examination on the simulator and documented their findings. There was a significant relationship for both clinical breast examination time (r(6) = 0.99, p < 0.001) and average force (r(6) = 0.92, p < 0.005) between our current sensors and the new fabric sensors. In addition the senors were not noticed by the participants. These new sensors provide new methods to measure and assess clinical skill and performance.