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Main Authors: Ogbonna, Ikechukwu, Davidson, Lesley, Banerjee, Soumya, Dasgupta, Abhishek, Kenney, Laurence, Nagaraja, Vikranth Harthikote
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.23958
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author Ogbonna, Ikechukwu
Davidson, Lesley
Banerjee, Soumya
Dasgupta, Abhishek
Kenney, Laurence
Nagaraja, Vikranth Harthikote
author_facet Ogbonna, Ikechukwu
Davidson, Lesley
Banerjee, Soumya
Dasgupta, Abhishek
Kenney, Laurence
Nagaraja, Vikranth Harthikote
contents Millions of people in African countries face barriers to accessing healthcare due to language and literacy gaps. This research tackles this challenge by transforming complex medical documents -- in this case, prosthetic device user manuals -- into accessible formats for underserved populations. This case study in cross-cultural translation is particularly pertinent/relevant for communities that receive donated prosthetic devices but may not receive the accompanying user documentation. Or, if available online, may only be available in formats (e.g., language and readability) that are inaccessible to local populations (e.g., English-language, high resource settings/cultural context). The approach is demonstrated using the widely spoken Pidgin dialect, but our open-source framework has been designed to enable rapid and easy extension to other languages/dialects. This work presents an AI-powered framework designed to process and translate complex medical documents, e.g., user manuals for prosthetic devices, into marginalised languages. The system enables users -- such as healthcare workers or patients -- to upload English-language medical equipment manuals, pose questions in their native language, and receive accurate, localised answers in real time. Technically, the system integrates a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline for processing and semantic understanding of the uploaded manuals. It then employs advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) models for generative question-answering and multilingual translation. Beyond simple translation, it ensures accessibility to device instructions, treatment protocols, and safety information, empowering patients and clinicians to make informed healthcare decisions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_23958
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Bridging the Gap with Retrieval-Augmented Generation: Making Prosthetic Device User Manuals Available in Marginalised Languages
Ogbonna, Ikechukwu
Davidson, Lesley
Banerjee, Soumya
Dasgupta, Abhishek
Kenney, Laurence
Nagaraja, Vikranth Harthikote
Machine Learning
Millions of people in African countries face barriers to accessing healthcare due to language and literacy gaps. This research tackles this challenge by transforming complex medical documents -- in this case, prosthetic device user manuals -- into accessible formats for underserved populations. This case study in cross-cultural translation is particularly pertinent/relevant for communities that receive donated prosthetic devices but may not receive the accompanying user documentation. Or, if available online, may only be available in formats (e.g., language and readability) that are inaccessible to local populations (e.g., English-language, high resource settings/cultural context). The approach is demonstrated using the widely spoken Pidgin dialect, but our open-source framework has been designed to enable rapid and easy extension to other languages/dialects. This work presents an AI-powered framework designed to process and translate complex medical documents, e.g., user manuals for prosthetic devices, into marginalised languages. The system enables users -- such as healthcare workers or patients -- to upload English-language medical equipment manuals, pose questions in their native language, and receive accurate, localised answers in real time. Technically, the system integrates a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) pipeline for processing and semantic understanding of the uploaded manuals. It then employs advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) models for generative question-answering and multilingual translation. Beyond simple translation, it ensures accessibility to device instructions, treatment protocols, and safety information, empowering patients and clinicians to make informed healthcare decisions.
title Bridging the Gap with Retrieval-Augmented Generation: Making Prosthetic Device User Manuals Available in Marginalised Languages
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.23958