Increasing applications of robotic surgical systems in Asia and more instructions
Amrita Hospital introduces robotic walking trainer for rehabilitation
Amrita Hospital in Kerala’s Kochi city has started adopting a robotic gait trainer system to help in the rehabilitation of brain and spinal injury survivors.
Developed by local startup Gen Robotics, the G-Gaiter offers an immersive rehabilitation experience via virtual reality. It also trains patients to walk longer and become less dependent.
Based on a press release, the hospital the robot trainer offers additional services, including neural therapy, non-invasive brain stimulation and multimodal spasticity management.
HKUMed performs first robot-assisted spine surgery in Hong Kong
Surgeons at the University of Hong Kong have developed a robot-assisted technology for spine surgery.
A first use case in Hong Kong, the robotic system allows greater precision and accuracy in screw placement, which is traditionally done using a freehand technique by an experienced surgeon to facilitate spinal correction or fusion. It comes with preoperative surgical planning software that helps determine the best implant strategy based on spinal CT images.
The technology has “improved the accuracy and safety of instrumentation during spine surgery, reduced the number of revision surgeries, increased operational efficiency, reduced postoperative complications and shortened the length of hospital stays,” according to Dr. Kenny Kwan Yat-hong, head of the Spine Surgery Department of the Department of Orthopedics and Traumatology, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, School of Clinical Medicine (HKUMed).
According to a media statement, 20 robot-assisted spine surgeries have been performed since the robotic system was introduced in October last year.
The Japanese MHLW launches an online overview of birth clinics
Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has gone live with a new website that provides information on health facilities offering childbirth services.
According to a press release, the web platform lists the location of each facility, the opening hours of the outpatient clinic reception, the number of doctors, the number of deliveries per year, the services offered and the estimated cost of their services.
Users can search by region to find a birth center that meets their needs. Approximately 2,043 facilities across the country, 96% of which deliver more than 21 babies per year, are currently listed on the website.
The NCD risk prediction model project exceeds the 10,000 target
An India-wide study that aims to collect comprehensive health data to build a model for predicting the risk of chronic diseases recently completed its first phase.
National R&D organization Council of Scientific and Industrial Research announced that it had achieved its goal of collecting 10,000 samples of a wide range of health information, including clinical data, pathology reports and lifestyle and dietary habits, from volunteer participants in 17 states.
Launched late last year, the PI-CheCK (Phenome India-CSIR Health Cohort Knowledge Base) project aims to develop a risk prediction model for non-communicable diseases, specifically diabetes, liver diseases and heart diseases, specifically for the Indian population . According to the researchers, existing models are based on epidemiological data from white populations, which may not be representative of the Indian population.