A Smart Needle To Enable Precise Needle Positioning During Anaesthetic Procedures (Wearable Europe 2017)

This presentation will detail the development of a new medical device - the smart needle. We have integrated an impedance sensor on a hypodermic needle to identify tissue type at the needle tip. The smart needle will improve the safety of ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve block (USgPNB) by using bioimpedance data to identify the location of the needle tip relative to the target nerve.

Lisa Helen is a final year PhD student at Tyndall National Institute and the Department of Chemistry at University College Cork. She holds BSc (Honors) degree in Biomedical Science from University College Cork and Cork Institute of Technology and was awarded the Government of Ireland Postgraduate Scholarship from the Irish Research Council to fund her PhD studies. Currently Lisa is working on the 'Development of a 'smart' needle integrated with an impedance sensor to determine needle-to-nerve proximity during nerve blocking (anaesthetic) procedures' under the supervision of Dr Eric Moore and Dr Brian O'Donnell. Lisa is passionate about the biomedical field and is keen to bring feasible solutions to real clinical problems for the benefit of both the user and the patient.

The Tyndall National Institute at University College Cork is a leading European centre in integrated ICT (Information and Communications Technology) research. Specialising in electronics and photonics, our mission is to deliver economic impact through research excellence. We work with industry and academia to transform research into products in our core market areas of electronics, communications, energy, health, agri-food and the environment. Tyndall generates approximately €35m in income each year, has a network of over 200 industry partners and customers worldwide, the institute employs 500 staff, including 120 full-time graduate students. Tyndall plays a very active role in Horizon 2020, and produces almost 300 peer-reviewed publications annually.