Contents
When something is wrong with the body, doctors can learn from the relatively subtle signals the body sends. It can be the handshake itself, but also the appearance of the face or eyes, or the sound of the voice. So how does the body betray the disease? We explain.
- The examination of the patient is the diagnostic method underlying medicine
- And no wonder, because many ailments can be detected thanks to symptoms that are visible to the naked eye
- Artificial intelligence can help to diagnose based on visible symptoms
- More current information can be found on the Onet homepage.
The examination of the patient is one of the oldest and still used diagnostic methods, often – especially if performed by an experienced physician – as good as the laboratory or imaging tests ordered afterwards. Marek Edelman told Hanna Krall that this aspect of medicine encouraged him to attend medical studies.
I heard the professor say: “When a doctor knows what a sick person’s eye looks like, what the skin looks like, how does a tongue look, then he should know what the sick person is.” I enjoyed this
– noted the outstanding reporter.
Now, research is underway using artificial intelligence, which may be even more perceptive than the human brain in picking up important subtleties. And so, at the recent American College of Cardiology conference, the Mayo Clinic team showed that the probability of coronary heart disease can be determined by analyzing a patient’s voice. In a study involving over a hundred volunteers, a certain quality of voice meant a 2,6 times greater risk of the disorder.
Instruments are needed here – scientists did not listen to the speech of the volunteers with their own ears; it was done by a computer with artificial intelligence trained to analyze 80 different parameters.
“The technology we use uses machine learning to evaluate something that we cannot perceive with our human brain and ears,” explains Dr. Jaskanwal Deep Singh Sara.
The number of participants in this study was too modest to draw definitive conclusions, and the technology is currently in the research phase, but the results are promising and doctors may receive an additional diagnostic tool in the near future, especially in remote medical services.
– Telemedicine is non-invasive, inexpensive and effective. At the same time, it is gaining more and more importance in the face of a pandemic – emphasizes the cardiologist.
And he makes an important caveat.
– We are not suggesting that voice analysis will replace the doctor or the current methods of helping the sick, but we believe there is a great potential for using this technology as a supplement to today’s methods. Providing a voice sample is intuitive and even fun for patients and can become a scalable method to support patient management – emphasizes the specialist.
The digital ear of a psychiatrist
If you can diagnose heart problems with your voice, it should come as no surprise that you can also assess the condition of a patient with a mental disorder. This method was shown by researchers from the University of California in Los Angeles, who for 14 months watched a group of volunteers with serious diseases such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or severe depression.
Once or twice a week, the participants of the experiment called a special, free line and answered simple questions about their well-being or the challenges they had to face recently. An intelligent program primarily analyzed the words and how their selection changed over time. He also took into account the tone of his voice to a lesser extent. The researchers, they say, were able to better assess the condition of the volunteers, they say.
– The way people answer questions and the changes that occur in these responses are unique to each patient. We look at each person individually, not only at the diagnosis – says Dr. Armen Arevian, author of the study described in “PLoS ONE”.
He explains that artificial intelligence has allowed researchers to notice individual, diverse, clinically relevant language usage parameters and patients’ voice patterns.
Health reflected in the eyes
In addition to listening to a person’s speech, one can carefully observe its various parts. For example, it turns out that pictures of the retina can indicate a risk of cardiovascular disease as well as death. After the analysis of 90 thousand. fundus photos of almost 50 thousand. of people, artificial intelligence has learned to determine the overall risk of death of a person by comparing the biological age of the retina with the historical age of a person. The greater the difference (older – more damaged retina), the greater the risk of death.
“Our results indicate that the difference in a person’s retinal age and chronological age could potentially be an indicator of aging closely related to the likelihood of death. This suggests that retinal age analysis can serve as a screening tool and choosing the best aid for patients », the researchers conclude.
It is written on the face
The same applies to the face, although the research is only just beginning here.
“There is enormous, untapped potential associated with the latest computer methods and machine learning (…)”, write scientists from the Italian National Council for Scientific Research, authors of the analysis of progress in this field. However, what today occupies the heads and laboratories of scientists, tomorrow may end up in hospitals or clinics. It is even possible that programs of this type will run on ordinary smartphones, Italian researchers believe.
Experts from Macquarie University in Sydney say, for example, that thanks to the analysis of the shape of the face – including Symmetry, average appearance, or sexual characteristics listed on it, you can already predict various physiological health-related features, such as percentage of body fat, BMI, blood pressure. These are parameters that are critical to cardiovascular health. Their research project also showed that people are also not bad at reading the health written on the face.
Clench your hand and learn something about your heart
Meanwhile, some tests that can tell a lot about the state of the body require only basic instruments, such as a pressure gauge.
Scientists from the Korean Institute of Health and Environment recently reported the relationship between the strength of handshakes in adults and their health, more precisely, the presence of at least two diseases. Information on nearly 20 participants indicated a strong, inverse correlation – the stronger the handshake, the lower the risk of disease. According to researchers at McMaster University, the strength of a grip can tell you more about your health than measuring your blood pressure.
– Handshake assessment can be an easy and inexpensive test to assess the risk of death and heart disease, says Prof. Darryl Leong, author of a study published in The Lancet magazine. Doctors or other healthcare professionals can measure the hug to identify patients with serious diseases such as heart failure and stroke who are at particular risk of death, says the researcher.
His team came to such conclusions after four years of observation of as many as 140. volunteers aged 35-70, in 17 countries. For every 5 kg drop in strength, the overall risk of death increased by one-sixth on average. Strokes and heart attacks were just mentioned among the main causes of death.
This type of study can also tell a lot about the health of children – say experts from Baylor University. They conducted a two-year observation of a group of students who were 9-10 years old when they started the experiment. According to handshake measurements, as much as 28 percent. boys and 20 percent. the girls were classified by researchers as “weak”. In this group, during the observation period, the risk of health deterioration was three times higher than in the group of children with a strong hug. A clear correlation persisted even after adjusting for other factors such as cardiorespiratory fitness, blood pressure, family health history, lipid and glucose levels, physical activity, and lean body mass.
– Grip strength testing is simple, non-invasive and easy to perform in a doctor’s office. Such a test is of great value for both adults and children – emphasizes prof. Paul M. Gordon, author of a study published in The Journal of Pediatrics.
So no one should be surprised if the doctor asks him for a strong handshake, saying a few sentences into the microphone or standing for a photo.
Marek Matacz
Heart under control. Perform a suite of laboratory tests available at Medonet Market.
We encourage you to listen to the latest episode of the RESET podcast. This time we devote it to yoga. How to start your yoga adventure? How to benefit from it not only because of pain in the spine, joints or muscles? Check what non-obvious benefits this practice brings and what are the contraindications for practicing it. Listen: