Virtual Treatment Experience System for Chronic Disease Compliance
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Patients with chronic diseases often struggle with treatment compliance due to side effects such as nausea and vomiting, leading to suboptimal treatment outcomes, as they lack understanding and anxiety about the treatment process.
Innovation Solution
A virtual treatment experience system that provides a personalized avatar reflecting treatment progress, allowing patients to engage in virtual activities and receive scores for adherence, thereby increasing treatment compliance and understanding through a gamified approach, emotional support, and community interaction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If patients undergo actual treatment, then treatment effects are achieved, but side effects such as nausea and vomiting occur causing patients to give up treatment
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary action by allowing patients to experience a virtual treatment process before actual treatment. Patients can simulate the treatment course, experience side effects in a virtual environment, and learn coping strategies beforehand, which prepares them mentally and physically for the actual treatment, reducing the likelihood of giving up due to side effects.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a virtual copy of the treatment process and side effects. Instead of directly exposing patients to harmful side effects, the system replicates the treatment experience in a virtual environment where patients can observe and learn about side effects without actually suffering them, enabling informed decision-making and better compliance.
2Loss of information
If patients are provided with treatment information, then understanding of treatment process improves, but anxiety about treatment increases
Solution Approach 1:
The virtual avatar serves as an intermediary between the treatment information and the patient. The avatar visually demonstrates treatment effects and side effects, making abstract medical information concrete and easier to understand. This visual mediation reduces anxiety by presenting information in a non-threatening, relatable format rather than through clinical descriptions.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses visual changes in the avatar's appearance to represent treatment progress and side effects. Color changes and physical transformations of the avatar provide intuitive visual feedback about treatment effects, making complex medical information easily comprehensible and reducing anxiety through visual rather than textual presentation.
3Reliability
If virtual treatment experience is provided, then patient compliance and understanding improve, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables self-service by allowing patients to independently explore the virtual treatment experience without requiring extensive medical staff intervention. Patients can autonomously interact with the virtual environment, observe treatment effects, and learn coping strategies on their own, reducing the operational complexity burden on medical staff while improving compliance.
Data Source
AI summary
The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for providing a virtual treatment experience which can make a user to understand the necessity for treatment and learn how to counteract side effects of the treatment. The apparatus may include a patient information manager configured to acquire medical information including disease name and blood value of a patient and treatment information including treatment program information and prescription information, a virtual activity provider configured to proceed with a virtual activity according to a manipulation command from a user terminal of the patient and provide an additive score and a subtractive score according to a result of proceeding with the virtual activity, and a controller configured to calculate health value information by quantifying a current health condition of the patient based on the blood value of the patient, select a first display image of an avatar corresponding to the calculated health value information, recalculate the heath value information of the patient using health value information set according to the number of days for which the treatment program has been applied and the provided additive score and subtractive score, and change the first display image of the avatar to a second display image according to the recalculated health value information of the patient.