Artificial intelligence models could make it possible to more accurately estimate the level of pain felt by patients. Ultimately, their suffering could therefore be better taken care of.
- Blood pressure, heart and respiratory rates, temperature and oxygen levels would characterize a level of pain
- It is by using artificial intelligence to analyze these criteria that researchers hope to find better targeted treatments.
Could a patient’s blood pressure, heart rate, temperature, respiratory rate and oxygen level be used to characterize their level of pain? This is the opinion of several researchers at Johns Hopkins University, in the United States, who have just publish their work in the journal PLOS Computational Biology. According to them, these five vital data help to determine the level of suffering of patients. From this observation, they created an artificial intelligence capable of collecting and processing them. At the end of their experiment, this one was able to measure the level of evil, but also the change and the feeling of the pain – that is to say the subjective pain – in real time of a patient. Indeed, from one person to another, suffering is not perceived and experienced in the same way. Thus, this technology could pave the way for new, more personalized pain treatments.
Pain management is essential for patients with sickle cell disease
During their work, the scientists worked on people with sickle cell disease, an inherited genetic disease affecting the structure of hemoglobin. The red blood cells are deformed and have difficulty circulating. This can cause clots in the vessels, which will lead to complications and suffering. The patients analyzed were all hospitalized because of severe pain. For people with sickle cell disease, managing it is essential because there is no cure for this condition. Evil always returns, during periods of crisis. To relieve the sick, the only treatment offered is medication, with analgesics for example. But in the long term, if the catches are too regular, they can lead to addiction or undesirable effects.
An artificial intelligence capable of analyzing subjective pain
The researchers therefore developed an artificial intelligence system capable of analyzing the data – blood pressure, heart and respiratory rates, temperature and oxygen levels – of these hospitalized patients with sickle cell disease. Based on these five elements, the artificial intelligence could determine their pain level of individuals: low, moderate or high. But, the more information the artificial intelligence processed, the more accurate it became. Scientists eventually realized that it also indicated the level of suffering experienced by patients, ie subjective, and changes in pain. Thus, they concluded that the suffering of patients was analyzed more precisely by artificial intelligence, which took into account these five vital patient data.
Hope for more targeted treatments
Previously, there were already artificial intelligence devices to measure pain. They were based on objective physiological measurements, such as muscle activity or facial expressions. But, until now, only a few studies have considered using artificial intelligence with physiological data collected regularly. “Studies like ours show the potential of artificial intelligence to improve our ability to monitor patients in a less invasive way and ultimately be able to deliver well-timed and targeted treatments.”, emphasizes Mark Panaggio, one of the main authors of the study. In the future, the researchers would like to adapt this model to other types of data, such as fitness trackers. The more information taken into account, the better the tools for preventing and treating pain.
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