Artificial Intelligence Smartphone Tool Could Diagnose Strokes Within Minutes

When having a stroke, a swift diagnosis is important. Now, a new AI based tool could diagnose a stroke within minutes simply through a smartphone.

Novel tool can diagnose stroke with the accuracy of an emergency room clinician from interaction with a smartphone, reports a new study.

The tool can diagnose a stroke based on abnormalities in a patient's speech ability and facial muscular movements within minutes from an interaction with a smartphone.

Stroke – Early Warning Signs - Risk Factor - Rehab - Treatment
Stroke can cause permanent disability and it is important to recognize its early warning signs to stop its progress. Early warning signs of stroke include sudden weakness of facial muscles.

‘New machine learning model aids in potentially increases the speed of stroke diagnosis in a clinical setting. ’

According to a study, researchers have developed a machine learning model to aid in and potentially speed up the diagnostic process by physicians in a clinical setting.

"Currently, physicians have to use their past training and experience to determine at what stage a patient should be sent for a CT scan," said study author James Wang from Penn State University in the US.

"We are trying to simulate or emulate this process by using our machine learning approach," Wang added.

Beauty Parlor Stroke Syndrome | Vertebrobasilar Insufficiency - Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatment
Beauty parlor stroke syndrome is a form of vertebrobasilar insufficiency that causes symptoms of mild to severe stroke after a hair wash in a beauty parlor.

The team's novel approach analyzed the presence of stroke among actual emergency room patients with suspicion of stroke by using computational facial motion analysis and natural language processing to identify abnormalities in a patient's face or voice, such as a drooping cheek or slurred speech.

To train the computer model, the researchers built a dataset from more than 80 patients experiencing stroke symptoms at Houston Methodist Hospital in Texas.

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Healing through music therapy: Listening to music and playing instruments (keyboard, drums, guitar, and hand-held percussion) can stimulate the brain and uplift the mood in stroke patients.

Each patient was asked to perform a speech test to analyze their speech and cognitive-communication while being recorded on an Apple iPhone.

"The acquisition of facial data in natural settings makes our work robust and useful for real-world clinical use, and ultimately empowers our method for remote diagnosis of stroke and self-assessment," said Huang.

How to Deal with a Stroke - Signs - Symptoms - Risk Factors - Prevention
Stroke is a brain attack, which occurs when the blood supply to the brain is interrupted. It affects all age groups; according to the WHO, 15 million people are affected by stroke annually.

Testing the model on the Houston Methodist dataset, the researchers found that its performance achieved 79 percent accuracy comparable to clinical diagnostics by emergency room doctors, who use additional tests such as CT scans.

However, the model could help save valuable time in diagnosing a stroke, with the ability to assess a patient in as little as four minutes.

Source-IANS