Regional ophthalmic anaesthesia or regional blocks are a standard procedure preceding ophthalmic procedures such as cataract or vitro-retinal surgeries. The anaesthetists undergo clinical training to understand the intricacies of the procedure. The novice anaesthetists generally train on animals or human cadavers. This does not give any feedback and it is a huge drawback. A need exists for the development of a training system that can be used not only to train a novice but also can be used to evaluate the trainees skill level.

The design and development of a novel mannequin-based training system suitable for both needle and cannula based regional ophthalmic anaesthesia procedures are presented in the thesis. For the training of needle-based procedures, a novel camera-based ocular anatomy and needle visualisation scheme is developed. This system tracks the needle position and generates a warning if the tip enters into unsafe regions. The system consists of anatomically accurate 3D printed ocular structures and four cameras. Two cameras, placed inside the mannequin, focusing on the two main injection regions and continuously monitor the needle position. The other two cameras are placed externally for syringe angulation monitoring. Further, the system was enhanced by integrating ophthalmic anaesthesia palpation training. During palpation, the developed system senses the applied force, and the position using resistive sensors with suitable interfacing circuits, that are integrated into the system. To achieve ocular digital massage training, a new flexible eye mount has been developed. It utilizes a magnetic sensing approach, integrated onto the eye mount, to sense the movement of the eyeball and the force applied.

The development of the first of its kind mannequin-based training system suitable for a cannula-based sub-tenon block is also presented in the thesis. The novel sub-tenon block training system uses a conductive-silicone eyeball coupled with magnetoresistance, and capacitive sensing approaches developed explicitly for cannula position detection. All systems developed utilise an NI LabVIEW based virtual instrumentation interface to display the visual feedback, relevant warnings, and procedural feedback. The developed training systems for needle and cannula based akinetic procedures were validated individually with a total of 78 participants (41 for the needle procedure and 37 for the sub-tenon procedure) and the results are discussed.