Vertebral Fractures and Juvenile Osteoporosis: Increasing Parent/Carer Awareness with an Interactive Application

Glucocorticoids used long-term to treat young people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) are toxic to bone and may result in the development of osteoporosis which can lead to vertebral fractures. In addition, vertebral fractures are difficult for families to visualise from two-dimensional lateral radiographs. There is a lack of three-dimensional (3D) resources for families and young people with DMD to understand the morphology of the fractures causing difficulty visualising and understanding them in a clinic. Parents and carers must be able to make informed decisions for treatment plans as well as understand future health implications. Positive results have been seen in numerous studies indicating that interactive applications utilising digital technologies have benefitted knowledge acquisition, motivation and engagement in anatomical, medical and patient education. Therefore, this study aimed to create a web-based interactive application with 3D models and animation to aid awareness of osteoporosis and vertebral fractures in parents or carers of children with DMD. Nine caregivers completed an online questionnaire before and after viewing the application. Awareness of key aspects of the conditions increased for most participants. Additionally, the application scored 80.6 on the System Usability Scale showing that the application was easy to use. Learnability also scored well, suggesting the application was intuitive. As a pilot study, this research suggests that a web-based interactive application with 3D models and animation could benefit the parents and carers of young people with DMD regarding their awareness of osteoporosis and vertebral fractures. This could help parents and carers understand their child’s needs better as well as allow more efficient use of time with clinicians. Further research to include a larger and more diverse group of participants could be conducted to include statistical analysis for more reliable results.