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BackgroundPast research has revealed that insufficient pain assessment could, and often, has negative implications on the provision of quality health care. While current available clinical approaches have proven to be valid interventions, they are expensive and can often fail in providing efficient pain measurements. The increase in the prevalence of pain calls for more intuitive pain assessment solutions. Computerized alternatives have already been proposed both in the literature and in commerce, but may lack essential qualities such as accuracy of the collected clinical information and effective patient-clinician interaction. In response to this concern, 3-dimensional (3D) technology could become the innovative intervention needed to support and improve the pain assessment process. ObjectiveThe purpose of this analysis was to describe qualitative findings from a study which was designed to explore patients’ perceptions of adopting 3D technology in the assessment of their pain experience related to important themes that might positively or negatively influence the quality of the pain assessment process. MethodsThe perceptions of 60 individuals with some form of pain in the area of Greater London were collected through semi-structured interviews. Of the 60 respondents, 24 (43%) produced usable responses and were analyzed for content using principles of the grounded theory approach and thematic analysis, in order to gain insight into the participants’ beliefs and attitudes towards adopting 3D technology in pain assessment. ResultsThe analysis identified 4 high-level core themes that were representative of the participants’ responses. These themes indicated that most respondents valued “the potential of 3D technology to facilitate better assessment of pain” as the most useful outcome of adopting a 3D approach. Respondents also expressed their opinions on the usability of the 3D approach, with no important concerns reported about its perceived ease of use. Our findings finally, showed that respondents appreciated the perceived clinical utility of the proposed approach, which could further have an influence on their intention to use it. ConclusionsThese findings highlighted factors that are seen as essential for improving the assessment of pain, and demonstrated the need for a strong focus on patient-clinician communication. The participants of this analysis believed that the introduction of 3D technology in the process might be a useful mechanism for such a positive health care outcome. The study’s findings could also be used to make recommendations concerning the potential for inclusion of 3D technology in current clinical pain tools for the purpose of improving the quality of health care.

Designers are often faced with the challenge of following web accessibility guidelines that are complex and ambiguous, and therefore hard to use. This is evidenced by the low percentage of public websites that comply fully with web accessibility standards worldwide. Lack of engagement among designers to follow established web accessibility guidelines is often accounted for this issue. In this paper, we address designers' lack of engagement through a serious game called GATE which is based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). We followed a User-Centred approach by identifying user types of designers through an online survey. We then mapped these user types and the WCAG to relevant game mechanics. The resulting game was evaluated with designers for its perceived effectiveness, user engagement, and user satisfaction using a mixed methods approach. Our results demonstrate the potential of GATE which offers designers an innovative and engaging solution towards the wider adoption of web accessibility guidelines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pain constitutes an important medical concern that can have severe implications to a wheelchair user's quality of life. Results from studies indicate that pain is a common problem in this group of individuals, having a reported frequency of always (12%) and everyday (33%). This incidence signifies the need for more applicable and effective pain management clinical tools. As a result, in this paper we present an Android application (PainDroid) that has been enhanced with Virtual Reality (VR) technology for the purpose of improving the management of pain. Our evaluation with a group of wheelchair users revealed that PainDroid demonstrated high usability among this population, and is foreseen that it can make an important contribution in research on the assessment and management of pain.

Over the years, an increasing number of the adult population suffers from some form of back pain during their lifetime, something that consecutively has a very important impact on a country's health, as well as economic systems. It is beyond dispute though, that pain is a feeling or emotion that is subjective in nature. Thus, traditional methods of measuring pain are consequently considered to be subjective in their ability to efficiently gather and communicate such pain measurements. As a result, the work presented in this paper attempts to address the aforementioned limitation by presenting a theoretical framework, in which back pain measurements are taken, and the hypothetical association with objective measures, performed with the upcoming technique of pressure mapping, are indicated. A pilot study on wheelchair users to examine our proposed framework was conducted, with results of this pilot study showing that it is a promising solution for the purpose intended, and that it could generally prove to be a significant complementary method for the back pain community.