RP28 - AR/VR for Doctor-Patient Interaction

AR/VR successfully prepares children for an MRI examination at University Hospital Essen [1]. The benefits are reduced anxiety and better-informed patients. Hardware for AR/VR is becoming more powerful, less costly and more comfortable. This research project aims to implement and evaluate AR/VR options for the doctor-patient interaction at the PoC. An early interaction in the patient pathway that shows promise is counselling before a sentinel node biopsy, or when patients are eligible for neoadjuvant therapy. The objective is to inform the patient in a visual form and evaluate if visual AR/VR applications plus doctor interaction are beneficial in comparison to pure doctor counselling without AR/VR (collaboration will be done with RP35 and RP38). Cancer patients are typically elderly persons, and the acceptance in this age group is questionable [2] and will be evaluated. This project collaborates closely with the Centre for Virtual and Augmented Reality in Medicine at the University Hospital Essen and patient representatives. Later treatment options for melanoma patients are complex, and it is important that patients fully understand the benefits and side effects of treatments. In particular, the explanation of neoadjuvant treatment may benefit from personalised information. In addition, it will be evaluated whether patients will use AR/VR navigation capabilities for more in-depth information about treatment and effects. It will be evaluated whether visual and more individualised AR/VR-based counselling has advantages over the standard information method. The aim is not to reduce doctor-patient interaction but to evaluate the potential benefits of adding a modern interaction method to the patient dialogue. The research will be conducted in treatment groups and by interviewing patients and doctors. It will support human empowerment and evaluate modern interaction methods at the PoC.

[1] S. Liszio, L. Graf, O. Basu, and M. Masuch, “Pengunaut trainer: a playful VR app to prepare children for MRI examinations: in-depth game design analysis,” in Proceedings of the Interaction Design and Children Conference, in IDC ’20. New York, NY, USA: Association for Computing Machinery, Jun. 2020, pp. 470–482. doi: 10.1145/3392063.3394432.

[2] S. R. van der Kruk, R. Zielinski, H. MacDougall, D. Hughes-Barton, and K. M. Gunn, “Virtual reality as a patient education tool in healthcare: A scoping review,” Patient Educ. Couns., vol. 105, no. 7, pp. 1928–1942, Jul. 2022, doi: 10.1016/j.pec.2022.02.005.