The engineer Philippe Büchler demonstrates the robot that is being designed to improve the treatment of spinal deformities. | Image: Adrian Moser/University of Bern

Spinal deformities can often only be corrected by fusing the bone in sections of the backbone. But the principle behind this technique originates in medicine already a century old, says the spine surgeon Daniel Studer from Basel. In collaboration with bioengineers from the University of Bern, a robot has now been developed that can help devise better methods. During an operation, it can measure the three-dimensional segmental stiffness of a patient’s spine, and gather biomechanical data.

P. Büchler et al.: The Spinebot—A Robotic Device to Intraoperatively Quantify Spinal Stiffness. Journal of Medical Devices (2021)