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Remote controlled simulation mannequins are nothing new to medical training. In EMS we’ve been using them for years and each iteration comes with a host of new features. The military’s new Medi-Man dummies, however, sound like they really hit the mark when it comes to accuracy:

The dummies are remotely controlled by the instructors to simulate particular injuries. Some have gaping belly wounds or spray blood – actually a red fluid that can be chemically tweaked to reflect different injuries – from severed limbs. Others might be breathing irregularly, their pump-activated chests rising on just one side. “A trainer can change a dummy’s behavior according to trainees’ actions,” says Staff Sergeant Glenn Gonzalez, noncommissioned officer in charge of the facility.

That’s only the beginning, though. The real breakthrough may be in the intensity of the scenarios. Over at Fort Bragg, it sounds like these dummies are getting the snot beaten out of them on a daily basis while the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division trains for deployments in Iraq.

Teams of six trainees race down a path in Fort Bragg’s forest. They must treat and carry any “casualties” they encounter along the way – usually two per team. Obstacles include barbed wire, trenches and holes filled with mud. Instructors throw training grenades to keep the medics’ heads down. “I guarantee you they’re exhausted by the time they reach this point,” Gonzalez says, standing near the barbed-wire obstacle. The idea, he says, is to make sure medics can make smart decisions about treating casualties even while scared and tired. Gonzalez and his fellow instructors have trained around 1,800 medics and doctors in the past year.

So, when these things make their way into the private-sector end of medical education they will have been well tested and, hopefully, most of the durability issues will have been worked out. The only people I know who beat on training equipment more than EMS folks? Military folks.

The proof, perhaps, is in the numbers:

“There have been around 2,400 soldiers killed in Iraq due to enemy action,” says Captain Earnhardt, division spokesman. “The reason that’s 2,400 and not 10,000 is this training.”

Via War is Boring

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Oh, those Canadians are at it again with all of their inventing and politeness. Well, this has nothing to do with politeness, unless your idea of “polite” is ensuring effective chest compression rate and depth during CPR.

Two engineering students from McMaster University have invented what they believe is the solution: the CPR Glove. They have entered a prototype of their innovative device in this year’s Ontario Engineering Competition for university students being held in Ottawa from Feb. 9 to Feb. 11. They are part of a 17-member team competing from McMaster.

The black, one-size-fits-all CPR Glove features a series of sensors and chips that measure the frequency and depth of compressions being administered during CPR and outputs the data to a digital display.

To be effective, compressions must be given at the rate of 100 per minute and at a depth of four to five centimeters.

A study measuring retention of CPR training published in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that 59 per cent of the time, compressions were applied at the rate of only 80 per minute. Thirty-seven per cent of the time, the compressions were too shallow. CPR administered at these levels is not likely to save a person in cardiac arrest.

What I find particularly interesting about this is that it seems effective in many different ways: as a training adjunct, as a real-time indicator of compression effectiveness, and as an interface device for AEDs designed for bystander-use. Think of the effectiveness of cues like “deeper” or “harder” . . . well, you get the point.

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