There is a growing consensus in the global health community that the use of communication technologies will be an essential factor in ensuring universal health coverage of the world’s population. New technologies can only be used profitably if their accuracy is sufficient. Therefore, we explore the feasibility of using Apple’s ARKit technology to accurately measure the distance from the user’s eye to their smartphone screen. We developed an iOS application for measuring eyes-to-phone distances in various angles, using the built-in front-facing-camera and TrueDepth sensor. The actual position of the phone is precisely controlled and recorded, by fixing the head position and placing the phone in a robotic arm. Our results indicate that ARKit is capable of producing accurate measurements, with overall errors ranging between 0.88% and 9.07% from the actual distance, across various head positions. The accuracy of ARKit may be impacted by several factors such as head size, position, device model, and temperature. Our findings suggest that ARKit is a useful tool in the development of applications aimed at preventing eye damage caused by smartphone use.
To the Editor: Older populations have multiple comorbidchronic diseases that require multiple treatments, which makethem the larger consumer of medications (1). As a persongrows older the ability to tolerate medications become poor dueto age-related changes in pharmacokinetics andpharmacodynamics. The number of comorbidities increaseswith age that leads to the increase in number of medicationprescribed which is associated with increased risk of adversedrug events (ADEs), impaired mobility, morbidity,hospitalization and death.
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