Designing an automated wound care monitoring INSTRUMENT
Imme Ebben (BE master student)
Filip van der Kroft (IDE bachelor student)
Leonie Hoekstra (AT bachelor student)
René van Koolwijk (CreaTe bachelor student)
Pep Canyelles Pericàs (assistant professor RAM)
Abstract
Half a million people are affected from chronic wounds in the Netherlands alone. This problem is worsening globally due to diabetes incidence. Every year, about 100,000 Dutch patients suffer from diabetic. Monitoring wound healing requires frequent and specialized clinical care. However, standard clinical practice relies on the human expertise from wound carers, nurses or medical doctors. Moreover, certain measurement techniques can be painful and come with infection risks. Hence, there is a need for non-invasive, accurate and automated ways to check wounds. We suggest an automated robotic system to reliable obtain digital images of wounds. The instrument is designed for home use, operated by visiting wound carers, optimizing clinical resources, and leading to personalized care. Design requirements have been set with a context-of-use analysis from the Twente hospitals and major Dutch home wound care providers. The prototype is robust, user-friendly, safe, accurate, and consistent. We automate image acquisition with a robotic arm with a camera module fitted measurement hardware. The instrument is compatible with advanced image processing and additional imaging techniques.
.