Artificial Intelligence (AI) In Health Care and Rehabilitation

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be viewed as the fourth industrial revolution and the emerging frontier in medicine.AI refers to the capability of a machine to perform a functional task overseen insightfully by humans. AI applies algorithms to learn, think, and then ultimately aid various clinical practices such as e.g. radiology and rehabilitation. AI is also used to find all relevant current information from journals, books, and evidence-based practice, helping in clinical decision-making in health care. Moreover, AI technologies aids in the reduction of medical errors in health care practices.

The use of AI technologies is swiftly growing in health care and rehabilitation. As health professionals, we need to increase our awareness AI's applications in rehabilitation to provide best practice patient care.

Sport Medicine/ Orthopedics

AI in the orthopedic surgery and sports medicine has been applied in various areas such as predicting athlete injury risk, interpretation of medical imaging, evaluating patient-reported outcomes etc. However, as with all new knowledge, this emerging technology will require a elemental working comprehension of the strengths, limitations, and applications of AI-based tools.

Rehabilitation

Exoskeleton: controls hip/knees

AI in rehabilitation can augment the patient care by aiding physiotherapists in several ways eg. providing a thorough assessment, forecasting patients’ performance, establishing a diagnosis. AI in medical and rehabilitation practices can also be applied to problem solving, x-ray diagnosis and protocols for best practice.

Neurology

Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems using AI and modern signal processing methods have the ability to help clinicians in analysing and interpreting physiological signals and images more effectively in Neurological Disorders such as epilepsy, Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, multiple sclerosis, and ischemic brain stroke.

Brain disorders: The use of AI techniques is helping solve a large number of clinical problems dealing with the brain. Recent research and relevant data accumulation are actively developing an increasingly number of effective algorithms, aiding in our understanding of complex brain mechanism.

Pro-Robotic-Gait-Training.

AI has vast potential in neurologic physiotherapy. Development in AI technology involve robotic-assisted therapy; motor function and gait assessment; assessment of level of function, upper extremity recovery, and movement. Examples are eg using data from wearable sensors to spot gait patterns (abnormal gait patterns, gait asymmetry etc). AI sensors recognise abnormal movement patterns during functional movements and can be of great value in analysis of functional tasks, and prescription of personalised treatment plans. In concert with telerehabilitation, virtual reality, and body-worn sensors in the future this may be a fantastic way to monitor the type and dosage of home exercises, e.g. alerts to a remote therapist could be alerted when a patient is performing exercises incorrectly or when there is a need to modify exercises.