DEVELOPMENT OF A SMARTPHONE AUGMENTED REALITY EYE EXAMINATION TOOL

Examination of the eye fundus is an important procedure that allows for various conditions including blindness, eye diseases, and signs of tumors or other anomalies of the brain to be diagnosed. The examination comprises an analysis of the eye's physiology accompanied with functional tests to determine visual acuity and functionality. Proper diagnosis of eye fundus can help identify early eye conditions that may compromise eyesight. However, eye fundus examination training presents challenges related to the understanding of the procedure, the operation of the equipment, and ultimately the diagnosis which requires interpretation of the observed eye fundus images observed in two dimensions using the ophthalmoscope. To provide suitable training tools independent from patient availability, medical simulation-based training devices offer customizable scenarios that present the trainee with various diseases that they can explore. However, access to such equipment can be restrictive and given the one-on-one patient/physician interactions inherent with an eye examination, having multiple students training simultaneously is not possible. In this work, we present the development a smartphone-based, augmented reality app that transforms a mobile phone into an ophthalmoscope to provide a complementary tool to practice eye fundus examination in a safe, controlled, portable, and cost-effective manner. Our early explorations with content experts provide us with a basis to further continue our development, given the educational potential of taking advantage of smartphone technology that it is common to most trainees.