How often have you felt niggles of pain or discomfort in your joints? Well, quite often. DARPAN SAINI tells us how AI plays an important role in current times with the pandemic forcing everyone indoors and restricting travel further
With packed schedules and a large number of roles and responsibilities to take charge of, it’s impossible to find time to keep your health in check constantly. This becomes even more applicable to muscular pains and dull aches that definitely irritate and hamper your quality of life, but aren’t severe enough to attend to immediately.
This phenomenon has become even more prevalent in current times, with the pandemic forcing everyone indoors and restricting travel further. It’s in these last few months that digital healthcare has really brought about a transformation, reaching the far depths and corners that are so cosy that you almost don’t want to leave them. Well, convenience is just one of the many benefits of this new age healthcare that uses digital technology to reach consumers and connect them with highly skilled specialists to solve real life problems. In physiotherapy, it doesn’t matter now if you’re in too much pain to endure daily transit to your local physiotherapist.
The scenario is fast changing with the latest in AI devices being used in the field of physiotherapy. Artificial Intelligence, or AI machines basically have the smart ability to adapt to what’s happening around them and incorporate new learnings and changes into their system. These have become a big hit off late, in terms of suggestive medicine where common subsets of patients with the same kind of symptoms and ailments are prescribed more or less similar treatment protocols. Data gathered from patients is then stored and interpreted to give the best possible offerings. Not only that, these apps and devices also help patients store their entire case history easily, connect them directly to their doctors, and keep a check on their daily exercise plans ensuring accountability on all fronts.
Evidence of their use in physiotherapy has been extremely promising too:
A number of physiotherapy start-ups have web set-ups where remote clinical teams can view analyses of patient data and use this information to monitor and adjust the rehabilitation programme. They have a digital therapist that gives real time cues like lift your arm higher, keep your elbow straight and tracks movement to check the patient’s form. This new technology in the field of medicine monitors users with wireless motion trackers that patients attach to their bodies, which feed data back to the firms where specialised doctors can then take an accurate update on the patient’s recovery. The patient in turn has a personal physiotherapist in the form of his or her app, where they choose the time and place to exercise without compromising on accountability or form.
If this trend continues, a healthier, pain-free world where doctors are more accessible, exercises are more consistently executed and treatment is more convenient and affordable awaits us.
The writer is CEO, Phyt.Health
