Patent ID: 8556635

Claim:
A physiological training and evaluation simulator system suitable for training and testing personnel in regard to administering a nerve block, comprising: (a) a simulated physiological structure within which are disposed a pair of circuits, including a first circuit representing a nerve, and a second circuit representing a sheath, wherein the sheath defines a region where an energized nerve stimulator will just start to stimulate the nerve enclosed by the sheath surrounding the nerve, the nerve and sheath each being formed of an electrically conductive elastomer, but being electrically insulated from each other; (b) a simulated nerve stimulator that is electrically coupled to the first circuit and to the second circuit; (c) a voltage source; (d) an electrically conductive probe that is electrically coupled to the voltage source and which can be manipulated by a user of the physiological training and evaluation simulator system, for insertion into the simulated physiological structure where the pair of circuits are disposed, in an attempt by the user to contact only the second circuit representing the sheath, but not the first circuit representing the nerve, the simulated nerve stimulator detecting when the electrically conductive probe contacts either the first circuit or the second circuit, or both the first circuit and the second circuit, and producing an output signal in response thereto, the output signal indicating whether one or both of the first circuit and the second circuit has been contacted by the probe, the output signal being used to evaluate whether the user has inserted the electrically conductive probe into the simulated physiological structure correctly at both a proper depth of insertion and at a proper location so as to contact only the second circuit representing the sheath and thus, the region that would be stimulated by an energized nerve stimulator, or has improperly inserted the electrically conductive probe at too great a depth or at an improper position so as to contact the first circuit representing the nerve, which would result in improperly administering a nerve block to the nerve with a nerve stimulator; and (e) a computing device coupled to the simulated nerve stimulator to receive the output signal, a display being included with the computing device and responding to a software program executed by the computing device to produce a simulated ultrasound image in which each nerve and sheath represented by a circuit contacted by the probe is visually hi-lighted on the display.