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Patients like doing visual field tests assisted by humanoid robot
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Allison McKendrick, PhD, suggests that humanoid robots can be used to replace aspects of the human interaction during perimetry, according to new research presented at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology meeting.
McKendrick’s research revolves around improving clinical vision testing to provide better information to doctors and patients.
“Our experiment involved using a robot assistant to help with vision testing, and we found that people were actually very receptive to this and had a positive experience,” she said at an ARVO-sponsored press conference.
Twenty-two adults, naïve to perimetry, participated in four visual field tests conducted using an Octopus 900 (Haag-Streit AG) controlled with the Open Perimetry Interface to enable automated feedback.
All participants received an initial introduction to perimetry from a human operator and then participated with the following feedback conditions: human; humanoid robot (NAO Robot, Softbank Robotics, Japan); computer speaker; and no feedback. The robot and computer speaker output were generated using the same voice option.
After each test, a participant survey was completed regarding test engagement using Likert scaling.
“This is a very important test that many patients have to have done quite regularly,” McKendrick said. “Patients like having someone in with the room providing feedback and reassurance during the test. Unfortunately, due to resource constraints, that’s not always possible in every setting. We wanted to see what would happen if we had a robot providing that assistance.”
At the end of testing, an exit survey was performed that compared all four options.
Researchers found no effect of feedback type on mean sensitivity, fixation losses or false positives. Participants strongly preferred having feedback to no feedback.
Post-hoc testing revealed no difference in overall rating of experience between the human and the robot; but both were preferred to the disembodied voice, researchers wrote.
The response to having a human or robot was similar, McKendrick said.
“Such technology may make the experience more enjoyable for both patients and operators, which may, in turn, improve compliance and attitude towards perimetry,” researchers wrote. – by Abigail Sutton
Reference:
McKendrick AM, et al. Robot assistants for perimetry: Patient experience and performance. Presented at: Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology; Honolulu; April 29-May 3, 2018.
Disclosures: McKendrick receives financial support from CenterVue, Haag-Streit and Heidelberg Engineering. Please see the abstract for all remaining authors’ financial disclosures.