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| AI diagnoses dementia with just one brain scan |
Millions of people worldwide suffer from dementia, and about 10 million people develop dementia each year. Perhaps one of the biggest challenges doctors face is the difficulty of diagnosing this disease, but artificial intelligence can play an important role in this.
Here a group of scientists from the University of Cambridge in the UK have developed an artificial intelligence system that can diagnose dementia with a single scan of the brain.
Completed non-clinical studies have shown that the new system can track the first signs of dementia years before symptoms appear, and is currently preparing for clinical studies.
The term dementia does not describe a specific disease, but rather a general term that describes a person's inability to think, remember, make decisions, or manage activities of daily living.
Diagnosing dementia with artificial intelligence
Doctors currently rely on a large number of cognitive tests to diagnose dementia. The diagnostic process also requires more than one brain scan. The diagnostic process usually takes up to 12 weeks. This comes from the Alzheimer's Association.
New AI system enables faster diagnosis. It also shows how the disease will develop and develop in the future.
The algorithm of the system is based on tracing a set of patterns within a radius. These are patterns that neurologists usually cannot follow. The system then compares the patient's X-ray results to its database to find a match level, which will determine whether a person has the disease.
Professor Zoe Kurtze, from the University of Cambridge, said the new system would help improve the lives of people with dementia because it can diagnose the disease long before symptoms appear and prevent it as much as possible.
This new technology is currently used in many specialist clinics in the UK. Although the researchers plan to test it on 500 patients in the first year.
But the development process is still in its infancy and not everyone is happy with it. As Cambridge researchers claimed, some medical specialists for the disease said it was impossible to diagnose the disease based on a brain scan.