- Compare pre- and in-operation reaction times to determine significance.
- Determine wakefulness of the patient.
- How quickly the patient is expected to be awake.
- Find out the optimal time period of wakefulness.
In order to remove brain tumors or metastases awake surgeries are performed in the Clinic for Neurosurgery in Düsseldorf. During the awake surgery, the patient is locally anesthetized, but available. The surgeon can communicate with the patient to check whether the speech center is still functioning.
At the moment, the optimal period of the patient’s degree of attention is not sufficiently investigated for surgeries. However, this period is best suited for awake surgeries and is of immense importance for neurosurgery.
The novel mobile application (App) presented in this thesis is used to investigate the optimal period of degree of attention using statistical techniques. Therefore, the patient’s reaction time (RT) is measured during the entire clinical treatment using the introduced App. The patient’s degree of attention is derived from the RT. In addition, during the operation, the surgical team benefits by getting notified in real time as soon as the degree of attention is significantly worse than expected.
Statistical techniques are performed to predict RTs and to detect outliers. In the evaluation, these techniques are examined using quality factors, such as aesthetics, engagement, App functionality, outlier detection functionality as well as forecasting functionality.
In conclusion, the patient’s degree of attention is accurately identified and the surgeon is notified when the degree of attention is significantly worse than expected. The outlier detection algorithm has minimal weaknesses which can be eliminated by means of optimizations presented. Due to the basic conditions of awake surgeries, RT sessions can not be carried out at any time. But irregular sessions have negative impact to the quality of the forecast. Thus two alternatives are proposed which can overcome this issue in the future.
- Take a look on the Slides
- Download the master thesis (PDF)
APK (release 1.0.7) - 23.04.2018
APK (release 1.0.9) - 04.09.2018
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Use Samsung Galaxy S2 Tab Emulator for tests (1536 x 2048 pixels, 9.7 inches)
In order to get the most of the data, Bayesian Statistics could make the difference.