Development of a novel massage platform for medical training

BACKGROUND: Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) massage has a better effect on treating infant diarrhea compared to medical treatment. The TCM doctors need to be trained to master professional massage techniques. Traditional Chinese massage training relies on the students’ understanding ability, and cannot accurately record the students’ operating information. This situation leads to insufficient clinical massage skills of the students. OBJECTIVE: This paper proposes a novel massage training platform to quantitatively perceive the massage techniques of students. METHODS: The paper proposed two types of flexible array sensors, which are arranged and placed into the bionic baby according to the position of the human acupoints. The massage techniques of the training object can be analyzed and evaluated during the massage process by studying the voltage from pressure sensors when the participants massage the bionic infant. RESULTS: A medical student was invited to conduct the massage training experiment, and the massage information included the operating strength, massage frequency and the massage direction, which were recorded and analyzed through the training platform. CONCLUSION: The platform can perceive the parameters related to the massage technique of students and can be used for medical training.