3D pain drawings and seating pressure maps: Relationships and challenges

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2011 IEEEMobility impaired people constitute a significant portion of the adult population, which often experience back pain at some point during their lifetime. Such pain is usually characterized by severe implications reflected on both their personal lives, as well as on a country's health and economic systems. The traditional 2-D representations of the human body often used can be limited in their ability to efficiently visualize such pain for diagnosis purposes. Yet, patients have been shown to prefer such drawings. However, considering that pain is a feeling or emotion that is subjective in nature, the pain drawings could be consequently regarded as a subjective means of communicating such pain. As a result, the study described in this paper proposes an alternative, which encompasses a 3-D pain visualization solution, developed in a previous work of ours. This alternative is complemented with the upcoming technique of pressure mapping for more objectivity in the pain data collection. The results of this study have shown that the proposed approach is a promising solution for the purpose intended, and it could generally prove to be a significant complementary method in the area of medical practice for the mobility impaired community

Pain management following new and long-standing spinal cord injury: A pilot study of changes in pain intensity experienced during the day

The aim of the study was to examine variations in pain intensity during the day experienced by patients with spinal cord injury. Fourteen consecutive patients had clinical and demographic data recorded. Pain intensity was recorded using a Graphic Rating Scale (GRS) at 2-3-h intervals. Patients were grouped according to maximum GRS into mild and severe groups at assessment (T0). Changes of one-third in GRS were deemed clinically significant. Eight men and six women (mean age 53.1; SD 16.5; range 28-75) were studied. Seven patients with mild pain tended to deteriorate and those with severe pain to improve. Eight patients demonstrated clinically significant changes. These findings suggest inadequate pain control early morning for one group and increasing pain during the day for another. Use of such simple scores over time would enhance pain rehabilitation for all spinal cord injury patients. Usual GRS reporting may mask clinically significant, treatable, changes in pain

Attitudes of patients toward adoption of 3D technology in pain assessment: Qualitative perspective

This article is made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. © Fotios Spyridonis, Gheorghita Ghinea, Andrew O Frank. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 10.04.2013. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Background: Past 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. Objective: The 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. Methods: The 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. Results: The 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. Conclusions: These 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

3-D pain drawings-mobile data collection using a PDA

A large number of the adult population suffers from some kind of back pain during their lifetime. Part of the process of diagnosing and treating such back pain is for a clinician to collect information as to the type and location of the pain that is being suffered.Traditional approaches to gathering and visualizing this pain data have relied on simple 2-D representations of the human body, where different types of sensation are recorded with various monochrome symbols. Although patients have been shown to prefer such drawings to traditional questionnaires, these pain drawings can be limited in their ability to accurately record pain. The work described in this paper proposes an alternative that uses a 3-D representation of the human body, which can be marked in color to visualize and record the pain data. This study has shown that the new approach is a promising development in this area of medical practice and has been positively received by patients and clinicians alike

What do voters want from an online voting experience?

The UK does not offer remote online voting now. But, as digital services and digital citizen-government interactions continue to grow, voting could be offered remotely online (i-voting) in future alongside postal and in-person ballots. So what might i-voting look like, and how might voters respond? What makes an i-voting experience positive or negative? We designed a prototype voting app that mirrors the traditional ballot paper. We asked potential voters to use it, on 3 different digital devices, and compared it with the in-person experience. Our study involved a diverse sample of 32 people from the Brunel community who kindly gave their time to test the alternative voting mode and share their feedback and opinions with us. We are grateful for their participation. Our key findings are: • Gaining first-hand experience of the app was associated with either maintaining or improving willingness to vote online – the ‘maintainers’ generally had a high initial willingness to vote online, while the ‘improvers’ were initially less keen. • If i-voting were to become an option in future, our respondents want to see stronger security and authentication features on an i-voting app, education to inform voters about how i-voting works, and transparency about data risks, actors involved, and the security measures in place to prevent fraud and malpractice. Further testing, on a larger scale, could usefully explore which voter groups might benefit most from the option of i-voting, and how design features and voter engagement could address security and data protection concerns.Brunel University London

Detecting framerate-oriented cyber attacks on user experience in virtual reality

The VR4Sec 2021 workshop will be held [on 6 August 2021] in conjunction with SOUPS 2021 (https://www.usenix.org/conference/soups2021).Copyright © 2021 The Autor(s). Virtual Reality (VR) is expected to become an enabling technology for training in realistic conditions, data visualisation, education and many other applications. However, there is still limited research on cyber threats to VR environments and even less on technical protections against them. We are currently developing a VR testbed specifically designed for assessing different cyber threats, their impact to user experience and corresponding defences. In this work in progress, we demonstrate two novel approaches by which a cyber attack can potentially cause VR sickness on demand based on frame rate manipulation by taking advantage of GPU and network vulnerabilities. We further show that a simple unsupervised machine learning method using Isolation Forest can provide early warning of such attacks likely before they have significant impact on the VR system and its user

A mobile visual diary for personal pain management

Back-pain is one of the most prolific health problems within the population and costs industry lost revenue due to the amount of days people have to take off in order to recover. In this paper, we have targeted this problem and suggested a mobile app for visually diarizing the pain experience of patients. The Android platform is utilized and its technology stack forms the basis for this 3D centric application. Positive evaluations obtained provide evidence of the promising nature of the approach and indicate several future directions of research within mobile pain management

Chronic pain through COVID

Objectives: To identify good practice in the community management of chronic pain, and to understand the perspective of a group of healthcare service users towards the management of chronic pain using technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Forty-five people, recruited via social media and Pain Association Scotland, participated in three focus groups hosted over Zoom. Focus groups were conducted using semi-structured questions to guide the conversation. Data were analysed using Ritchie / Spencer's Framework Analysis. Results: The participants shared observations of their experiences of remotely supported chronic pain services and insights into the potential for future chronic pain care provision. Experiences were in the majority positive with some describing their rapid engagement with technology during the COVID pandemic. Conclusion: Results suggest there is strong potential for telehealth to complement and support existing provision of pain management services

Guidelines for conducting biofeedback-enhanced QoE studies in mulsemedia-enhanced virtual reality

This paper presents the conclusions drawn from an ongoing experiment investigating the performance, usability, and impact of multisensory stimuli in the virtual environment, with a focus on proposing guidelines for conducting biofeedback-enhanced Quality of Experience (QoE) studies in multimedia-enhanced Virtual Reality (VR). The study evaluated various devices, including the Polar H10 and Grove GSR for biosignal measurement and an EEG device for brainwave analysis. Concerns related to participant comfort were highlighted, such as discomfort caused by tight electrodes and difficulties in achieving consistent contact with the scalp. Ergonomic issues with Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) were also identified, emphasizing the need for comfortable and immersive experiences. The paper recommends addressing these concerns through inclusive design and user-friendly adaptation of devices. The findings emphasize the importance of integrated devices and user-friendly design to enhance QoE and facilitate the adoption of biofeedback technologies outside of the lab. By following the proposed guidelines, researchers and developers can improve the immersive experience and advance the field of biofeedback in VR environments.Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES, Brazil) − Finance Code 88887.570688/2020-00 (Programa de Pós-Graduação Sanduíche no Exterior), Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES, Brazil) − Finance Code 88881.689984/2022-01 (Programa de Pós-Graduação Sanduíche no Exterior), National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPQ, Brazil) − Finance Code 307718/2020-4 and Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa e Inovação do Espírito Santo (FAPES, Brazil) − Finance Code 2021-GL60J

Chronic Pain through COVID

Data availability statement: The datasets presented in this article are not readily available because the data is confidential and anonymous. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to [email protected] statement: The studies involving human participants were reviewed and approved by Abertay University’s Research Ethics Committee (EMS4573). The patients/participants provided their written informed consent to participate in this study.Copyright © 2022 Dunham, Bacon, Cottom, McCrone, Mehrpouya, Spyridonis, Thompson and Schofield. Objectives: To identify good practice in the community management of chronic pain, and to understand the perspective of a group of healthcare service users towards the management of chronic pain using technology during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: Forty-five people, recruited via social media and Pain Association Scotland, participated in three focus groups hosted over Zoom. Focus groups were conducted using semi-structured questions to guide the conversation. Data were analysed using Ritchie / Spencer's Framework Analysis. Results: The participants shared observations of their experiences of remotely supported chronic pain services and insights into the potential for future chronic pain care provision. Experiences were in the majority positive with some describing their rapid engagement with technology during the COVID pandemic. Conclusion: Results suggest there is strong potential for telehealth to complement and support existing provision of pain management services