Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been spotlighted in many science fiction movies and books, often with devastating results. Movies like The Matrix, The Terminator, and others all present a dystopian view of what might happen if AI goes wrong. The impact on humanity in these movies is catastrophic, and mankind must fight for survival against computers, machines, or aliens, depending on the movie.
In reality, AI tends to have a much more practical usage. In healthcare, AI can be used to help doctors give their patients a better idea of their long term health, and even enable them to make changes to improve health factors.
This is exactly what a team of researchers from the Radiological Society of North America are working on. They found that there was a relationship between body fat and someone’s risk of a stroke or a heart attack, but that human judgment wasn’t enough to accurately help individuals make needed changes. With automated learning, computers were able to more accurately predict someone’s risk of heart attack or stroke based on CT scans, effectively allowing people to make lifestyle changes to improve their health based upon this data.
We all know that we should eat healthier and get more exercise. But the risk of a heart attack or stroke always seems distant. The pleasure of eating what we want or being sedentary is often better than the abstract risk of something terrible happening years down the road.
Until it’s too late.
This new study has the potential to give us more detailed information when it comes to the risk of an adverse health event. It could even potentially give us a timeline of when such an event might happen if changes are not made. Knowing this information with more concrete certainty might not convince everyone to make lifestyle changes for a healthier future, but it is likely to help more people than not.
Other studies indicate that it’s often not too late to make changes. Even if you have an older loved one that has suffered from a heart attack, there are typically things that can be done to ensure that they recover more completely and that the risk of a second heart attack or stroke is diminished. There’s no guarantees when it comes to health, but eating right, getting exercise, and following other heart healthy practices can all push each one of us in the right direction. Having better information at our disposal can do the same.
If you or a loved one have suffered from a heart attack or stroke, there will likely be new needs that come up when it comes to your activities of daily living. You might be able to handle these changes on your own with ease, but maybe you’re struggling. If you are looking for help with daily activities, in-home care might be exactly the support structure that you are looking for. Please feel free to get in touch with us if you have questions or would like to know more about what in-home care is and how it might help you are your family.
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