And this is the same what you doctor and physiotherapist need to know, too.
Doctors used to hate patients had their Google search before going to their office, and be skeptical to whatever the doctors said about their condition.
Those days were over. Now the new “enemy” is all the AI chatbots eg: ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude etc.
Over the past few years scholars have been investigating whether AI can outsmart clinicians in diagnosis and deciding treatment for patients. It seems both side have their competitive edges, and we cannot have a simple answer to this question. However,
The enemy’s enemy is our friend, indeed.
You need proper prompts to enter the Chatbot to get your answers. So does clinicians need these information to diagnose, draw conclusions, and suggest treatment options. You can see whether the clinicians’ answer matches with AI bots, to confirm your take of action, and trust more in the recovery and treatment progress.
What happened recently, and how you feel now – history of present illness (HPI)
A lot of injuries are not recognized until next day, weeks or months after the inciting event. Have a detailed story of what happened on the day you are injured – before the game started, how did the leg go, whether you could get up straight from the injury, and whether you can finish the game.
If you have a video of how you sprain your knee or ankle, we can a fair a bit of idea what structures can be injured.
Example: “Last weekend I had a tennis game with my friends. When I was trying to reach out for a shot, which I needed to have a sudden change of direction to the left. I could finish the game with adrenaline rush, but I couldn’t walk the next day. What could possibly injured?
What happened previously – past medical history, lifestyle
Overuse injuries can possibly related to your lifestyle and training routines. If you sit at the office all day long, your spine is likely to suffer. Your body can be very plastic to adapt gradual increase in workload and make yourself a stronger person. A sudden increase in training workload, an old injury that has not been well treated, or even a growth spurt for a boy in puberty can be signs leading to sports injuries.
Example: “I am 16 years old and my height grew from 150-160 in 6 months. I present my school for basketball. The team is preparing for a local league so training session increases from 8 sessions to 10 sessions a week. I had an ankle sprain on the left untreated in 2018. Are these related to my current problems?
What worsens/ relief the symptoms – pattern recognition
Some injuries worsens by the structure being stretched. Some others worsened by being compressed. Sometimes we are moving too much, too soon. Sometimes it is painful at only a certain angle; sometimes it only happens after you finish the whole day, or even the next day.
Example: for my back pain, I find it worst when I bend down, doing dead lifts and sitting for 2 hours. It gets better if I try to arch my back, doing some yoga stretches but the back pain hasn’t gone completely.
Do I need to see a doctor/ physiotherapist? – The diagnosis of the injury
You need to see a doctor when you need imaging to find out structural defects, prescription to medications for the problem, or seek surgical opinions. You need a physiotherapist to find out more on the mechanical dysfunction of the function, get manual therapy/ electrotherapy/ needling and rehabilitation exercises for the problem.
In other occasions, just an ice compression can solve most of the problems at your own home.
Example: Can a doctor/ physiotherapist solve my problem based on the information above? What is the diagnosis?
What are the treatment options based on the information above?
Even for the same lower back pain, there are tonnes of medical, physiotherapy and sometimes complementary and alternative medicine options to treat your sports injuries. Each professions have their bias of suggesting the treatment options they can offer to the patients. AI can summarize what the professions can do, what are their limitations, and related information that affects your decision making.
For these questions, you may also choose medical research specific tools like Consensus Ai to look for the latest scholarly publications to answer these questions.
Example: now I have ____ (condition). Can you show me what are the treatment options? List the summary of the procedure, cost, downtime and criteria for full recovery, and also expectation of treatment outcome. What should I expect after going through this treatment. How high is the possibility of getting adverse effect from the treatment?
At the end of the day, we want a peace of mind after having an injury, cruising through out of the uncertainty. Since you can read until here, I wish you all the best in getting the answers you want, either through latest technology, or less anxiety when you have your conversations with your health care professionals.
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