High possibility of language barrier between a patient and a doctor is in hospital. If a tourist or immigrant in another country needs medical care and have trouble with communication, they would face a difficult situation trying to express to a doc tor what is medically wrong, and the risk of miscommunication would be high. This may cause the patient even more pain. And a doctor helping patients in, for instance, poor countries would face the same problem.
Medical treatment commonly has 3 main procedures- reception, examination and
prescription.Of them, Most communications and interactions between a patient and a doctor are
occurred in examination. Exact and detail illustration of symptom of patient is required
for doctor. In contrast, explanation of the disease kind from doctor is required for
patient. The illustration of symptom and the explanation of the disease kind are
occurred simultaneously in the procedure. So there would be high possibility of
miscommunication between patient and doctor, if they have language barrier.
In medical examination, gastroenterologist has certain pattern and order of
the progressive question for identification of the disease by 4 main facts and
questions. In medical examination, gastroenterologist has certain pattern and order of
the progressive question for identification of the disease by 4 main facts and
questions. 
Pictogram and simple image are useful method as icon or sign for almost everyplace. It means they are efficient to notify or give information to people without any words. They have high possibility to support the communication between a patient and a doctor without spoken language. It ‘however’ is not clarified yet how much they are useful to express a symptom and deliver a sentence in the communication.
As a result, expression of visible symptom by image is more appropriate for the
communication without spoken language than expression of invisible symptom by image.
And expression number of times and specific time have much possibility for expression
by image. But expressing unspecific time like yesterday and last day is needed to be
reconsidered.
Total 30 final images are arranged for the communication in medical examination. The
images are generalized by the images people drew in previous surveys. The 30 images
are classified into 5 rows. Each low has different group of image. From the left, 1st low
has 4 feelings (pain, discomfort, soreness and burning in stomach), diarrhea and fever.
2nd low has 6 different shapes of diarrhea. 3rd low has 4 different colors of diarrhea
and intake and allergy of food. 4th low has state of diarrhea by water and 4 kinds of
foods (milk, egg, meat and vegetable). The number of times is placed in 5th low. 
Tangible device and graphical interface were made for the usertest. The tangible device was made by piled acrylic sheets and potentiometers. The potentionmeter is embeded in each small cylinder. Both sides of the small cylinders are connected each other by both metal bars. Therefore, each small cylinder can be rotated individually.
And the graphical interface on the screen was made by Flash.
Phidget sensor was used for connector between the tangible device and the graphical interface.
Here is final designed tangible device for symptom expression. The whole shape and operating
principle of it. Unlikely previous prototypes, it has 6 digital screens on each cylinder,
which individually present symptom image. The symptom image displayed on the digital
screen is changed by the rotatable small cylinder.
The final designed tangible device has 6 small individually rotating cylinders and 2 both end caps. The each small cylinder consists of 3 layers.
No.1 is the most outside layer which is touched directly by people. It is rotatable so that people can change symptom images by rotating it. It is transparent so that people can see change of the image through it.
No.2 is second layer under the no.1 layer. It has a digital screen to present a symptom image. It is fixed, not rotatable. Thus it displays a change of the image when No.1 layer is rotated.
And No.3 is third layer under the no.2 layer. It consists of magnetic. It is connected to no.1. So it is rotated together with no.1 and then it generates electricity by passing around the coil of no.2.
This touch screen can display the result to the
doctor in arranged form. The result is yield by the input of the tangible device. The
doctor can judge from the result whether additional diagnosis is needed or not to indentify a disease of the patient.
The system is consisted of the tangible device for symptom expression, the medical doll
location indication and the touch screen for prescription about the result from the communication between a doctor and a patient. 