Investigating the Influence of Hand Dominance on Postural Sway During Traditional and Simulated Laparoscopic Surgical Skills Practice.

This study examined how hand dominance could influence postural sway during laparoscopic skills practice. Ten inexperienced medical trainees performed a peg transfer task using the Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) training box and the virtual reality (VR) trainer. Surface electromyographic recordings of upper and lower limb muscles were taken, while the postural sway was measured by a pressure mapping system. Skills performance using the non-dominant hand required more muscle effort and increased more postural sway. Compared with the FLS training box, training with VR decreased the use of muscle effort and could reduce the influence of hand dominance on the overall postural sway during laparoscopic surgical skills practice.