A proof of market study of serious mobile games for amblyopia patient care

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Amblyopia is a disorder of the visual system characterized by a vision deficiency in an eye.The disease has no easily recognisable symptom and often starts to develop in earlychildhood. Without receiving timely treatment, it leads to a life-time visual impairment.Hence, there is a significant demand in constant monitoring the vision of children for earlydetection and timely treatment.Under the support from a previously TSB-funded project, we have conducted a feasibilitystudy for treating amblyopia with stereoscopic technologies and developed a technicalframework for building an Amblyopia Patient Care Suite, which is designed to contain aseries of games to allow for the detection and treatment of the disease on mobile devices. Thisoffers an interesting approach to detect and treat amblyopia for children, as the use of 3Dstereoscopic mobile games can significantly increase their level of concentration andcooperation during the treatment. It also allows training of the coordination between botheyes, significantly reducing the risk of over-penalising the good eye that lies in the traditionaltreatment method.While encouraging outcomes have been achieved in the initial trials, in-depth investigationsare still needed for a solid plan that bridges the research to the market. To this end, thisproposed proof of market study is a timely effort in identifying targeted user groups and theirrequirement, in performing market and competitor analysis, allowing estimation on furtherdevelopment cost and prediction of business growth.The study will be conducted using both primary and secondary research methods. Theprimary research will involve potential customers by organising interviews, online survey andfocus groups. The secondary research will explore published information such as marketreports.The work is expected to further strengthen the business partnership with the UK’s leading eyecare centre – the Moorfields Eye Hospital