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Moreover, both patients and clinicians indicated positive views toward the developed
interface, platform, and functionality.
We realize that the cost (of equipment and software) is a potential issue toward
large-scale adoption of our work. However, we are heartened by two aspects in this
respect: the prices of PDAs are decreasing, while their computational capacity is in-
creasing, as is their connectivity. Moreover, any potential initial investment in equip-
ment and software could be offset by the reduction in health care costs (better pacing
of medication intake, as our study has highlighted; potentially fewer hospital visits) as
well as by increased patient satisfaction due to the opportunity to become a stake-
holder in the management of pain (again, as shown by our study, although we realize
that it is difficult to put a price on patient satisfaction).
5.1 Contributions
The work undertaken so far has proved us that this project can have very important
contributions that need to be taken into consideration, both in the academia and indus-
try areas.
Academic Contributions.
The main focus of this work was 3D visualization, demon-
strated by the use of a 3D mannequin for back pain diagnosis and treatment purposes.
Currently, researchers in the field are increasingly exploiting this relatively new and
promising technology, something that shows the huge potential that exists for it in
disease treatment. To this end, 3D mannequins such as the one developed in this work
could be further exploited in the field and used for several purposes such as surgery
simulation and training. So, the 3D model could be manipulated and extended in a
way that it will represent a virtual patient allowing both visualization and navigation
inside the body's structure i.e. muscle and internal organs simulation, in accordance to
real medical images. Furthermore, besides the healthcare field, very important re-
search could also be carried out by other research fields as well, that could exploit our
proposed technologies.
Industry Contributions.
The motivation behind this work lies in the fact that, while
back pain is a worldwide problem with considerable implications on countries'
healthcare budgets and national economies, there is a relative paucity of tools for the
effective collection and digitization of back-pain data, as discussed in this work. The
disabling pain experienced by back-pain sufferers means that in many cases, such data
collection cannot take place unless medical personnel is present at the patient's domi-
cile, a situation which, in most cases, is both unrealistic and impractical. Considering
the above discussion, we foresee that the work produced by this study will hopefully
be able to overcome the aforementioned limitations, by improving healthcare services
for people suffering from such long term conditions, something that will definitely
have a beneficial impact on care, waiting lists, demand, workforce, hospital admis-
sions, costs, and prescribing [8].
Therefore, at the end this work, it is expected to come out with a fully developed
and evaluated tool that may be commercialized and/or utilized in further research
projects on related domains. For example, the digitization and conversion of the 2D
pain drawings described could be further used for people with multiple sclerosis to
record the pain suffered from this disease.
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