Techniques and Devices Used in Palpation Simulation with Haptic Feedback

Abstract

Palpation exam is a procedure in which a healthcare professional presses a specific region of a patient’s body with the fingers in order to detect the presence of features and abnormalities under the skin. A simulator that aids the training of this procedure may contribute to the learning of the technique and the improvement of its implementation in real patients. This article presents a systematic review conducted in order to assess the state of the art of the simulation of the palpation procedure, providing a categorization of techniques and approaches used in systems with haptic feedback. The results indicate that there are existing gaps concerning the accessibility of the haptic devices, innovative methods to calculate force feedback and deformation caused by haptic devices, and user experience improvement, since most of the studies consider only one point of contact, which can limit the simulation realism.