CPR Training Device

Team iDoll (Caleb Ho, Johnny Ho, Alan Huang, Noel Wu) Univ. of British Columbia Microsoft Imagine Cup 2007 Application: A portable and scalable interactive CPR manikin developed by Team iDoll, a group of students from the University of British Columbia. Team iDoll was one of 15 teams chosen for the finals out of more than 400 competing teams.

Background: Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) is a lifesaving technique practiced by millions of people each year. Chest compression, sometimes referred to as artificial circulation, is done by pumping the chest to circulate oxygenated blood throughout the body. Three factors of chest compressions are crucial to the overall technique: hand placement, depth of compression, and compression rate. The purpose of hand placement, or landmarking, is to target compressions to the most effective area of the chest without causing injury. Team iDoll asserts that CPR is often poorly executed as a significant percentage of CPR trainees lack the confidence and ability to perform CPR during actual life-threatening scenarios. Hence, Team iDoll sought to develop a system that would result in improvement in the CPR training paradigm.

Solution: Team iDoll developed a system that can be economically integrated onto manikins for self-guided or classroom- based CPR training programs. The system provides interactive features such as technique assessment and vital sign simulations, as well as other features that improve students' self-learning and help instructors manage multiple students in classroom settings. Tekscan's FlexiForce A201-25 sensors assist in the process by pinpointing the pressure points of hand compressions applied by students while performing CPR. The thin, flexible design of the sensors allowed them to be easily integrated into the solution to determine the position of hand placement.

For compression depth, the team considered a variety of alternatives, including optical sensors, potentiometers, and magnetic coils. Since pressure sensors were already chosen for hand placement, team iDoll determined that the rough relationship of pressure to depth could be used to estimate the compression depth.

In their prototype, team iDoll selected an accelerometer to use along with Tekscan's FlexiForce 0-25lb A201 pressure sensors to evaluate chest compressions. They calculated that the maximum downward acceleration caused by human compression would not exceed 1.5g on these CPR manikin models. For the prototype, they used two of Tekscan's standard off-the-shelf A201 sensors. The difference in force among the sensors is used to determine the hand location - that is, if the positioning of the hands is correct or not. Furthermore, these pressure sensors are crucial for calculating of the compression depth along with the accelerometer. As a result, these sensors served two important purposes while keeping cost low.