January 17, 2013

Robot Allows 'Remote Presence' in Programming Brain and Spine Stimulators




Technology Can Help Increase Access to Experts as Use of Neuromodulation Grows, Suggests Neurosurgery

With the rapidly expanding use of brain and spinal cord stimulation therapy (neuromodulation), new "remote presence" technologies may help to meet the demand for experts to perform stimulator programming, reports a study in the January issue of Neurosurgery, official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons. The journal is published by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, a part of Wolters Kluwer Health.

The preliminary study by Dr. Ivar Mendez of Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, supports the feasibility and safety of using a remote presence robot—called the "RP-7"—to increase access to specialists qualified to program the brain and spine stimulators used in neuromodulation.