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Department of Engineering, ICT and Technologies for Energy and Transport Patent Title A device for supporting and for adjusting the position of a patient's head during surgeries. Ref. CNR 10232 Assignee(s): CNR CNR Institute: ITIA Main Inventor: Lorenzo Molinari Tosatti Countries: IT, FR, DE, CH, ES, SE, UK Priority date: 03/08/2012 Abstract The present invention relates to a device for supporting and adjusting the position of a patient's head during surgeries or diagnostics; it allows a fine positioning and regulation and permits also rotation only or translation only adjustment without simultaneously modifying the position and orientation relative to the remaining translation and rotation axes. Such device regulate and adjust the patient's head in accordance with the natural mobility of the neck’s joint and muscles, with high speed and precision, as well as with high support rigidity both during and afer the adjustment. Beside, the device allows to respond in real time to stress or sudden voluntary or involuntary movements of the patient, as in "awake surgery", avoiding stress and severe pain in the patient. Background Prior art devices for supporting patient’s head ensure high stiffness but they do not allow an easy and precise adjustment of its position during the whole surgical operation. Manual adjustment of known devices is allowed unlocking mechanical constraints but is not assisted in any way and cannot easily performed during the surgical operation by a single surgeon. Moreover, their passive nature does not allow a quick, precise, easy and autonomous real­time repositioning and control of the head position. Technology The invention refers to a hybrid kinematics adjustment mechanism, characterized by a peculiar partially­ decoupled five­degrees­of­freedom parallel kinematics and one serial, properly controlled according to signals generated by external sensors or manual commands, able to control in real­time the patient’s head position during surgical operations. Advantages and Applications Precise positioning and adjustment of the patient’s head during surgical operations. Natural movements of neck’s muscles and joints. Free side and top access above the patient's head to allow accessibility by surgeons and medical personnel. Peculiar hybrid kinematic structure. Development stage The first prototype is currently available. It was realized during the FP7 Active European Project FP7­ICT­ 2009­6270460. Experiments assessed the compliance with technical specifications and functionalities, defined according to application requirements. 105