Virtual reality, gamification, and mobile multimedia for cystic fibrosis education and management

Cystic Fibrosis (CF) is a rare condition and is the most common life-limiting genetic disease affecting Caucasians; and Ireland has the highest occurrence of this condition in the world. As CF is a rare disease, common conditions and diseases such as asthma, diabetes, and heart disease are given precedence by researchers and practitioners who design and implement multimedia solutions. As life expectancy for CF patients is expected to rise, it is postulated that the development of multimedia interventions may aid CF adults in the management of their disease. This research, therefore, aims to investigate if and how the use of multimedia can be of benefit to Cystic Fibrosis knowledge and education. To achieve this, a systematic scoping literature review was conducted which yielded 12 manuscripts. From these papers it was observed that there is paucity in available multimedia for medical professionals, games for CF adults, and management applications for CF adults. These three observations serve as the objectives of each Chapter within the thesis. Each Chapter begins by investigating the observation further before designing and implementing a multimedia solution. The results of this research produced a 3D interactive virtual reality tool for medical professionals, a general mHealth design and development pipeline/framework, a serious game with data analysis system for CF adults, three e-learning tools for CF adults, and a CF patient passport app. All multimedia solutions were evaluated with their target audience, and each result is presented. This research concludes that multimedia can be of benefit to the education and management of Cystic Fibrosis. Feedback from testing with both medical professionals and CF adults demonstrates that these cohorts indeed want these multimedia solutions and find them beneficial. However, further investigation and research is required to evaluate the benefits these solutions have. Therefore this thesis also identifies further areas of interest and makes recommendations for future research