An Augmented Reality Technology to Provide Demonstrative Inhaler Technique Education for Patients With Asthma: Interview Study Among Patients, Health Professionals, and Key Community Stakeholders

Abstract

Background Many people with asthma use incorrect inhaler technique, resulting in suboptimal disease management and increased health service use. Novel ways of delivering appropriate instructions are needed. Objective This study explored stakeholder perspectives on the potential use of augmented reality (AR) technology to improve asthma inhaler technique education. Methods On the basis of existing evidence and resources, an information poster displaying the images of 22 asthma inhaler devices was developed. Using AR technology via a free smartphone app, the poster launched video demonstrations of correct inhaler technique for each device. In total, 21 semistructured, one‐on‐one interviews with health professionals, people with asthma, and key community stakeholders were conducted, and data were analyzed thematically using the Triandis model of interpersonal behavior. Results A total of 21 participants were recruited into the study, and data saturation was achieved. People with asthma were confident with inhaler technique (mean score 9.17, SD 1.33, out of 10). However, health professionals and key community stakeholders identified that this perception was misguided (mean 7.25, SD 1.39, and mean 4.5, SD 0.71, for health professionals and key community stakeholders, respectively) and facilitates persistent incorrect inhaler use and suboptimal disease management. Delivering inhaler technique education using AR was favored by all participants (21/21, 100%), particularly around ease of use, with the ability to visually display inhaler techniques for each device. There was a strongly held belief that the technology has the capacity for improving inhaler technique across all participant groups (mean 9.25, SD 0.89, for participants; mean 9.83, SD 0.41, for health professionals; and mean 9.5, SD 0.71, for key community stakeholders). However, all participants (21/21, 100%) identified some barriers, particularly regarding access and appropriateness of AR for older people. Conclusions AR technology may be a novel means to address poor inhaler technique among certain cohorts of patients with asthma and serve as a prompt for health professionals to initiate review of inhaler devices. A randomized controlled trial design is needed to evaluate the efficacy of this technology for use in the clinical care setting.

Three-dimensional Digital Reconstruction and Application of AR_MR Technology in Medicine

“…Taking AR technology and development as an example, many of them are based on multi-modality and multi-method medical image research, which makes them have the technical ability of high analysis and high processing [13], so that they can be applied to the improvement of the whole computer image, so as to build a variety of data-based human organ morphology and virtual reality medical improvement and construction environment. On this basis, the interactive facilities and experimental methods related to tactile sensation are carried out, so that it has high interactive exploration skills and technical forms, and no doctor provides high number of virtual simulation modeling means and technologies, so as to realistically complete the overall way and process of clinical surgery, so that it has the effect, method and form of implementation improvement in the overall interactive process, and interactive models such as AR develop, which has the characteristics of immersion and interaction [14]. It can complete the accommodation and development of human organs as a whole, so that the whole surgical deduction can complete the construction of teaching situation, and improve the technical realization on this basis, and finally realize a good learning experience technology, which makes the overall simulation an inevitable development trend of medical technology reform (Figure 3) [15].…”