AIDA – Experiences in Compensating the Mutual Weaknesses of Knowledge-based and Object-oriented Development in a Complex Dental Planning Domain
Rosina O. Weber, S. Haßfeld, Ulrich Koke, Thomas Christian Wetter, Ekkehard Finkeissen · Methods of Information in Medicine · 2002
OBJECTIVES: Dentistry is a discipline with two properties that pose a serious challenge to knowledge based decision support: (1) It has to integrate six subdisciplines ranging from conservative measures to invasive disciplines, such as implantology; (2) A plan may have to cover a complex treatment often lasting one year or more. It is the aim of the AIDA-project to set up a planning strategy that is suited to incorporate all dental peculiarities in one methodology. METHODS: Generic tasks, that can be assigned to individual persons involved in dental treatment, have been designed with the help of KADS. They have been integrated into a planning super-structure for the planning of all dental solution alternatives, that can principally be applied on the basis of the given patient status. RESULTS: Besides an evaluation of the implemented planning system itself, it has been evaluated how well the development is supported by (1) knowledge-engineering methods and (2) object-oriented methods. CONCLUSION: Common knowledge-based tools are not powerful enough for the planning of complex dental constructions. Therefore, a solution combining object-oriented and knowledge-based methods is proposed.