Training surgical skills with a visuo-haptic simulator: a preliminary study

Manual dexterity and depth perception play a crucial role in the medical and surgical domain. In this pilot study, we aim to evaluate whether extensive training with a visuo-haptic simulator for surgical training would promote manual dexterity. We combined a haptic device with a virtual and physical simulation, and we implemented an adapted version of the needle threading task, used to train laparoscopic skills. This setup has been tested on 44 right-handed subjects, divided in four groups performing multiple training repetitions in different modalities: with the dominant hand using the visuo-haptic simulator, with the non-dominant hand, with the dominant hand on physical simulation, and subjects who did not perform any training. All participants were tested before and after the training. Preliminary results revealed that training positively impacts task duration, pathlength and end-effector's depth, and that even a limited number of repetitions partially affects performance. We could not detect any performance difference between the groups; however, a training with the simulator significantly reduced the completion time. Altogether, results suggest that using a visuo-haptic simulator can be useful to train manual skills; nevertheless, it is important to carefully design the training tasks, in terms of difficulty and number of repetitions. Clinical relevance- This study evaluates simulation technologies for surgical training and the relationship between visuo-haptic simulation and dexterity.