Understanding the Brain and Exploring the Effects of Clinical Fatigue: From a Patient's Perspective

Rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases are a group of devastating autoimmune disorders that all share a common debilitating symptom fatigue. Fatigue is not widely understood and is often underrepresented in treatment regimes. Fatigue is the least successfully managed symptom of these conditions; however, it can often be the one of the greatest impairments.Augmented reality (AR) enhances a person's reality showing a hybrid environment where real and virtual objects coexist. Currently educational AR applications are saturating the application market, as they have shown great potential for increasing comprehension and understanding of complex concepts. AR expands user engagement by enhancing the learner's enjoyment and enriching their learning environment.This research explores the development and subsequent effect of an AR application on education around fatigue and basic neuroanatomy within the general population. The application was created using medical scan dataset, a variety of 3D modelling software and a game engine to create a functional and interactive augmented application. The application explores the effects of fatigue on a person's daily life while also laying a foundation of basic neuroanatomy. A pilot test conducted on 14 participants (8 males, 5 females and 1 other), with ages ranged 16-64 (4 form range 16 to 24, 5 from range 25 to 34, 1 from range 35 to 44, 3 from range 45 to 54, 1 from 55 to 64), shows the application is highly usable, increases understanding of basic neuroanatomical concepts and has the potential to improve understanding of fatigue. Nonetheless, further development and testing of the application are imperative so that we can gain a better understanding of the usability of the application with wider audiences. Future developments will aim to further aid knowledge acquisition and enhance understanding of fatigue, a complex and widely misunderstood concept.