Patent ID: 8041411

Claim:
A device for controlling a magnetic element in a body of a patient, comprising: (a) a magnetic field generator for generating a magnetic field which guides the magnetic element in the body of the patient; (b) a navigation device for generating a location information about a position of the magnetic element in the body of the patient wherein the location information comprises real-time three-dimensional information and information about tissue near the magnetic element in the body of the patient, wherein the navigation device further comprises a position image generator configured to evaluate a current x-ray image, magnetic resonance image, and/or ultrasound image where the magnetic element is located within the body and an ambient image generator configured to generate ambient information about an ambient environment of the magnetic element, so that image information can be evaluated against the ambient information and/or a current position of the magnetic element can be related to the ambient information with a position analyzer; (c) a monitoring device for monitoring the position of the magnetic element in the body of the patient based on the location information supplied by the navigation device; a guide device connected to the magnetic field generator comprising a guide element which is manually operable by a force effect of a user; (d) a control device fed with a control signal by the monitoring device and mechanically acting on the guide element when the magnetic element approaches an obstacle to generate a haptically perceivable signal communicated to a user tactically, visually; and/or acoustically to warn the user of the obstacle in advance of a collision; and (e) an inhibitor which counteracts the force effect of the user on the guide element when the magnetic element approaches the obstacle and configured such that the force exerted on the guide element by the inhibitor increases as a distance between the magnetic element and the obstacle diminishes.