Construction of virtual patient model for maxillofacial palpation training system

Palpation has been considered as one of the important diagnostic skills for doctors, which is conducted on a patient to identify the size, the consistency, and the location of a subcutaneous tumor. Accurate palpation skill often detects the cause of disease early. Even in the field of dentistry, palpation has been considered as the important diagnostic skill for dentists. By the way, any practical training of palpation against a patient did not implemented in the dental education because the patient safety has a priority more than its educational effect. Then we propose a training system for maxillofacial palpation by using virtual reality and haptic interface. The details of modeling a virtual patient model for the training system are shown in this paper, and the experimental results are also described.