Effectiveness of Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) on Oral Healthcare Education for the Independent Elderly

Effectiveness of Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) on Oral Healthcare Education for the Independent Elderly

The goal of this clinical trial is to learn the outcomes of Mobile Augmented Reality (MAR) for oral health education program in the independent elderly. The main question it aims to answer is:

• Can MAR for oral health education program provide better outcomes comparing to lecture-based education program and no intervention group.

The activity centers from the list will be randomly chosen and assigned to MAR, lecture, and no intervention groups.

• Participants from activity centers that were assigned as MAR and lecture groups will attend one time education program. They have to finish questionnaires 3 times and receive 2 times oral examination.
• Participants from activity centers that was assigned as no intervention group will not attend any education program. They have to finish questionnaires 2 times and receive 2 times oral examination.

Background/purpose: Aging is an inevitable global trend in this century. Elderly people are more susceptible to general health and oral health diseases which have negative impacts on their quality of life. Oral healthcare education could be the optimal measure to provide knowledge and develop self-care skills for elderly people to improve their oral health conditions. However, traditional passive lecture-based education programs might not be effective enough. There are many opportunities to improve the education program through digital technology. Mobile augmented reality (MAR) could be integrated into oral healthcare education to make education more effective. In this study, investigators would like to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of MAR-integrated oral healthcare education, as well as compare outcomes with traditional lecture-based education.

Materials and methods: Sixty independent elderly (age 65 or older) from six of Taipei city's local activity centers will be recruited. The participants will be required to be able to use smartphones in their daily life. The participants from one of the three activity centers will be randomly assigned to the MAR group (n=20), the other one activity centers will be assigned to the lecture group (n=20), and the rest will be assigned to the control group (n=20). The MAR group will be taught with MAR integrated education program, the lecture group will be taught with a traditional lecture-based program, while the control group will not undergo any education program. Outcome measurement will include oral healthcare knowledge, self-efficacy of oral healthcare, the usability of the MAR system, tongue coating, plaque index, and gingival index. The pre-, post-intervention, and two-weeks follow-up results will be compared by inferential statistics.

Results: The expected results are MAR integrated oral healthcare education could provide statistically significant improvement in participant outcomes compared to the control group and provide comparable or higher outcomes compared to the traditional education program. The usability score of MAR is acceptable.

Conclusion: MAR might be the feasible way to improve oral healthcare education for the independent elderly.

Inclusion Criteria:

• the elderly who are able to use a smartphone
• the elderly who can read and understand traditional Chinese

Exclusion Criteria:

• the elderly who has communication problems