A VIRTUAL SIMULATOR AS A TOOL FOR TEACHING REFRACTOMETRY

Significance: Several educational technological innovations are developed with the purpose of contributing to the training of future optometrists and ophthalmologists. However, very little is available for teaching refractometry. EYE REFRACTION is a simulator mobile applications (App) that works as a fast, straightforward and interactive interface tool for teaching refractometry. Purpose: Develop novel mobile application software (EYE REFRACTION) as a tool for teaching refractometry in medical schools. Methods: EYE REFRACTION software was developed by the emerging company “Ciência Ilustrada studio” incubated at “INOVA Metrópole” of the Digital Metropolis Institute of the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil (IMD-UFRN), using the XCode 4.6.2. program (Apple Computer, Inc. Cupertino, CA, USA). This application software (App) was created for Tablets and has a fully interactive workspace, where after inserting the refraction data of the patient, the user can observe points or focal lines of the refractive errors and all the arrangements resulting from the various possible corrections. Results: After 90 days of blind and random simulations of the EYE REFRACTION App performed by volunteered ophthalmologists, six failures were detected and promptly corrected. Two were detected when refractive errors were simulated (simple myopic astigmatism), two during simulations of hypermetropic astigmatism, being one simple and the other compound, and two others during the simulation of mixed astigmatism. Conclusion: A novel App for teaching refractometry was successfully developed, where it enabled a real-time observation of refractive errors and their arrangements. The EYE REFRACTION App is currently available at Apple App Store.