Development of Virtual Pulse Simulation for Pulse Diagnosis Studies

Pulse signals can be used to observe the early sign of patients' health problems. From medical researches, monitoring the characteristic of arterial pulse waveform shows some risk indicator of specific diseases, e.g., hypertension, cardiovascular and heart failure diseases. A simple way to get arterial pulse wave is by using fingers to touch the radial artery position on the wrist. In the traditional Chinese medicine, a physician can use the information of arterial pulse wave-form to identify diseases based on the physician’s ability and experience. The improvement of the skill in pulse measurement can be improved by training using various kinds of pulses that represent each disease. This paper proposes a development of the virtual pulse simulation using Augmented Reality (AR) and haptic device for pulse diagnosis studies under various situations. The pulse simulation generates arterial pulse waveforms based on Sine and Gaussian functions. In this study, the mathematical model can generate the pulse wave like human pulse by setting up specific parameters. We can generate pulse waveform which representing different kinds and states of diseases by varying the mathematical model and parameters such as pulse rate or pulse pressure. The features of this work include how to generate force feedback from the mathematical models using the haptic device and how the virtual 3D can display visual feedback. The pulse simulation is useful for the health sciences students, especially the nursing students in training to identify some diseases. The evaluation of the system was carried out by first-year nursing students regarding usability, satisfaction, and performance.