Illustration redesigned by Devin Thorpe
What’s the Big News?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) may play a crucial role in detecting the signs of stroke in a patient. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), someone dies of a stroke every four minutes. It is one of the leading causes of long-term disability and accounts for $34 billion in annual costs for care, medication, and missed workdays. The amount of people who suffer from stroke and stroke-related illnesses puts a major burden on the U.S. healthcare system.
Role of Health Care for Stroke Patients
The best way to reduce or prevent patients from having a stroke is to accelerate time-to-diagnose, and thus minimize brain damage. The stroke patient may fully regain their mobility, recover faster, or experience only a slightly long term decline if a stroke is diagnosed immediately. Since an imprecise diagnosis of a stroke leads to more serious consequences, health specialists are working on ways to efficiently diagnose and deliver the appropriate care for stroke victims.
Artificial Intelligence in Stroke Imaging
In the past few years, the most promising areas of health innovation are the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in medical imaging. It is becoming a go-to technology to diagnose a wide range of diseases such as diabetes, retinopathy, and even skin cancer. Vendors and engineers are currently working on AI algorithms that detect early signs of a stroke. What’s more, is that recently the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved a few vendors’ AI algorithms. The most noteworthy being Viz.ai, who has been cleared to market their algorithms to doctors and hospitals.
Artificial Intelligence can Predict and Detect Stroke
AI technology has advanced in the field of medical imaging, which enables doctors to detect the early warning signs of a stroke. Currently, AI can unlock numerous opportunities for stroke care, from uncovering underlying risks of stroke in certain patient groups to alerting health specialists. AI supports health specialists and provides them with actionable insights to accelerate diagnosis, and ensure accurate medication and intervention decisions.
Why does it matter?
This small breakthrough toward using AI is making healthcare more efficient and useful. It is possible to prevent strokes if doctors and patients recognize and mitigate the risks early. The advancements in AI algorithms for the purpose of detecting early signs of stroke make this more possible and is one aspect of how technological advancements can enhance the human life experience.
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