Enlightening Patients with Augmented Reality

Enlightening Patients with Augmented Reality (EPAR) enhances patient education with new possibilities offered by Augmented Reality. Medical procedures are becoming increasingly complex and printed information sheets are often hard to understand for patients. EPAR developed an augmented reality prototype that helps patients with strabismus to better understand the processes of examinations and eye surgeries. By means of interactive storytelling, three identified target groups based on user personas were able to adjust the level of information transfer based on their interests. We performed a 2-phase evaluation with a total of 24 test subjects, resulting in a final system usability score of 80.0. For interaction prompts concerning virtual 3D content, visual highlights were considered to be sufficient. Overall, participants thought that an AR system as a complementary tool could lead to a better understanding of medical procedures.