ABB’s robotic lab technician, YuMi, and Nurse Ratched have more in common than might appear at first blush. They’re both cold; they’re both heartless; and they both really want to help you take your meds.

But while Nurse Ratched notoriously represents the corrupting power of institutionalized bureaucracy, this robot, named YuMi, just wants to help hospitals and research labs run a little smoother.

The Swiss robotics and automation company showcased the roving lab tech earlier this fall at its new healthcare research hub, which is a collaboration with Texas Medical Research Innovation Institute in Houston. The hybrid lab combines a staff of 20 with an array of robotic assistants to test new ways that humans and machines can collaborate at the heart of medicine.

And there’s some urgency to their work. Baby Boomers are aging, and an unprecedented number of Americans are poised to enter the healthcare system over the next 10 years. Simultaneously, the industry is facing a deep shortage of nurses, doctors and other medical staff — particularly in home healthcare. There’s hope that robotics, artificial intelligence and automation will help leaders navigate these seismic demographic shifts and deliver care to more people and potentially with fewer resources.

Making the Rounds
In contrast to gargantuan robotic arms locked in cages along automobile assembly lines, YuMi is designed to work closely with humans as a gentler, collaborative sidekick. YuMi’s precise touch and range of motion make it adaptable to a wide range of tasks, from basics like sorting and unboxing to more elaborate tasks like folding paper airplanes, playing pool or directing symphonies.

For one of their medical bot prototypes, ABB engineers simply mounted YuMi atop a moving platform. YuMi uses its machine vision to avoid staffers and other obstacles, and can be programmed to do any number of rote, time-consuming tasks. YuMi could pick-up patient tests and transport them to the lab for processing. Delivering food and linens is no problem. YuMi can even easily deliver morning and evening medications right to door.

ABB also fitted a lab with other YuMi concepts that sort pills, prepare and unpackage medicines, load and unload centrifuges, and execute lab work pipetting. The robots are best suited for the repetitive, high volume tasks that consume a big part of staff time. ABB engineers say robots can perform these tasks 50 percent faster, and can also do them 24 hours a day. Ultimately, it gives staff more time to focus on higher-level work.

“The health care sector is undergoing significant transformation as the diagnosis and treatment of disease advances, while coping with an aging population, increasing costs and a growing worldwide shortage of medical staff,” Sami Atiya, president of ABB’s robotics and discrete automation business, said in a press release.

Feeling the Crunch
A recent report from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General found that 96 percent of VA facilities reported at least one “severe” occupational shortage as of December 2018. Thirty-nine percent reported 20 or more shortages. Mercer, a healthcare consultancy, estimates the United States will need to hire 2.3 million healthcare workers by 2025 to address the labor gap.

Robots could be key to helping drive down the costs of care and help medical workers do more with smaller teams. ABB estimates there will be some 60,000 medical robots on the job within five years or so. Robots, along with telemedicine, data mining, advances in genetics and so much more, are radically redefining what it means to visit the doctor.

The post Meet YuMi: A Robot Nurse Built to Make the Rounds appeared first on Artificial Intelligence.

So it was in October 2018, when I visited a company called Medopad, based high up in London’s Millbank Tower.

This medical technology firm was working with the Chinese tech giant Tencent on a project to use artificial intelligence to diagnose Parkinson’s Disease.

This degenerative condition affects something like 10 million people worldwide. It has a whole range of symptoms and is pretty difficult to diagnose and then monitor as it progresses.

Medopad’s work involves monitoring patients via a smartphone app and wearable devices. It then uses a machine learning system to spot patterns in the data rather than trying to identify them by human analysis.

In its offices we found one of its staff being filmed as he rapidly opened and closed his fingers – stiffness in these kind of movements is one of the symptoms of Parkinson’s.

As we filmed him being filmed, I stood there wondering whether I should step in front of the camera and try the same exercise.

For some months, I had been been dragging my right foot as I walked and experiencing a slight tremor in my right hand.

Getting to grips

I had first dismissed this as just part of getting older, but had eventually gone to see my GP.

She had referred me to a consultant neurologist, but at the time of filming I was still waiting for my appointment.

As we left Medopad, I clenched and unclenched my fingers in the lift and reflected on what I had seen. A few days later my coverage of the project appeared on the BBC website.

Three months on, in January this year, I finally met the consultant.

She confirmed what I had long suspected – I was probably suffering from idiopathic Parkinson’s Disease. The “idiopathic” means the cause is unknown.

As I got to grips with the condition and started a course of medication, I quickly found out that there are all sorts of unknowns for people with Parkinson’s.

Why did I get it? How quickly will the various symptoms develop? What are the hopes of a cure?

There are no reliable answers.

My response has been to take a great interest in how the technology and pharmaceutical industries are investigating the condition.

Developments in artificial intelligence, coupled with the availability of smartphones, are opening up new possibilities, and this week I returned to Medopad to see how far it had progressed.

I asked the firm’s chief executive, Dan Vahdat, whether he had noticed anything that suggested I might have a special interest in Parkinson’s when I first visited.

“I don’t think we noticed anything specifically,” he said.

“But – and that’s weird for me to tell you this – I had this intuition that I wanted to get you to do the test.”

That, of course, did not happen but over the last year there has been a clinical trial involving London’s King’s College Hospital.

People with Parkinson’s have been given a smartphone app, which their relatives use to record not just that hand-clenching exercise but other aspects of the way they move.

“We think this technology can help to quantify the disease,” Dan explained.

No instant impact

“And if you can quantify the disease, it means you can see how the disease progresses.

“It gives you lots of opportunities, in terms of treatment adjustments, interventions at the right time, potentially screening a larger cohort of patients with the technology in ways that were not possible before.”

This made me think about my own situation.

Since February, I have been prescribed Sinemet – one of the most common Parkinson’s drugs – in the form of two tablets taken three times a day.

While some patients see an instant impact, I cannot say I notice much effect.

If anything my main symptom, dragging my right foot, has got slightly worse. When I see my consultant every four months we discuss whether the prescription should be adjusted, but it is difficult for me to quantify my symptoms.

Dan told me this was exactly the kind of scenario they are trying to address.

“We think you will end up having a more continuous observation via machine and the doctors can look at it remotely. And with that they will be able to adjust your treatment, if needed, because potentially right now you’re either overdosing or underdosing.”

I am now going to get access to the trial app and look forward to finding out what it says about me.

This is just one of many projects run by a variety of companies where real-time data is collected from people with Parkinson’s and other conditions via their handsets.

The search for a cure to Parkinson’s goes on. We appear to be a long way off, but in the meantime quantifying a condition like mine could do a lot to improve how I and many others cope with the symptoms.

What is exciting to me is that the smartphone revolution, which I have documented since watching Steve Jobs unveil the iPhone in 2007, now promises to change healthcare just as it has transformed many other aspects of our lives.

And I hope to continue reporting on that revolution for many more years.

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Eliezer Yudkowsky, a leading proponent of “friendly” artificial intelligence, offers a cautionary observation about the potential of AI — solving problems by using computers to solve tasks that usually require human intelligence.

“The greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence,” he writes, “is that people conclude too early that they understand it.”

Any serious discussion of AI’s impact on the aging population must start with Yudkowsky’s implied question: Do we understand it? And if we do, how do we harness it to enhance the lives of our burgeoning population of older adults?

The potential exists for AI to provide lower health care costs, better transportation and longer employment. AI may even end the isolation that often separates less-mobile adults from family and friends and remove the stigma of growing old.

Realizing AI’s potential will require businesses and entrepreneurs to make it less expensive and for health care providers, sons and daughters to embrace it as a tool for more frequent, deeper connection. But first, we need to understand the challenge.

Demographic Shift and Health Trends

Recent estimates show that the United States has a distinctly older age profile than it did 16 years ago. Residents age 65 and over increased from 35 million in 2000 to 49.2 million in 2016, accounting for 12.4% and 15.2% of the total population, respectively.

From the incidence of aging-associated diseases — an effect of population aging — to policies that will improve quality-of-life outcomes, the graying of America is changing the way societies engage older adults, now and for the future. Health care is particularly important since chronic conditions and co-morbidities — the presence of two or more chronic diseases or conditions at the same time — are at an all-time high and will continue to rise if not addressed.

Since health becomes more challenging with age, scientists and researchers are working to increase health spans — the length of time that an individual is healthy — using innovations in technology such as artificial intelligence.

A Role in Caregiving for AI

Artificial intelligence is the core technology behind smartphone applications, robotics, medical technology, drones and self-driving cars. As AI progresses, the potential for a changing healthy longevity landscape holds a powerful promise for the aging population.

For instance, it can help fill the nation’s caregiving void — AARP has predicted a “caregiving cliff,” estimating that by 2030, only four potential family caregivers will be available for every person requiring care, and that number will fall to three by mid-century.

The effect of this trend is compounded by the fact that 90% of older adults want to stay at home. A 2015 survey found that 40% of caregivers say that home care is challenging. Since the goal is to improve independence, quality of life and well-being for older adults and caregivers, AI has a growing opportunity to tackle issues from affordability to individualized health plans.

It has been reported that AI may reduce or even alleviate the burden of caregiving. AI may also help people live at home longer through talking devices, sensors, machines and more. In fact, digital innovation has already simplified complex tasks, which have led to a crucial opportunity for AI — the business of aging.

A Booming Market for Artificial Intelligence

The market for AI technologies is flourishing. Beyond the hype and the heightened media attention, the numerous startups and Internet giants racing to acquire them have shown that there is a significant increase in investment and adoption. A Narrative Science survey found last year that 38% of companies were already using AI, and 62% were expected to by 2018. Some of these include voice-activated personal assistants like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri.

The business community can play an important role in facilitating longer, healthier lives. This mirrors the message in a report published by the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging (CFA), “Silver to Gold: The Business of Aging” and an essay series “The Business of Aging.”

These two publications are based on the CFA-convened Summit on Business and the Future of Aging to plan a course of action for business leaders to create products, services and innovations to serve the growing population of older consumers, among key objectives. As populations age, strategies to empower older adults to manage their health can help reduce the burden of diseases and health care costs.

Weighing AI’s Pros and Cons

Despite AI’s growing opportunity, it cannot tackle every challenge and, as Yudkowski suggests, many of its promised benefits have corresponding risks. Connectivity can draw older people closer to family and friends, but as we have learned, AI also can alienate us from the real, physical world since it cannot replace human interactions. The medical advantages of AI tracking personal data are also offset by the loss of privacy.

The problems of AI can be resolved if companies design safe artificial intelligence and decrease concerns about the proper role for these machines.

Since AI is on the cusp of becoming commonplace, corporations can work to mitigate the risks by evaluating, implementing and monitoring AI algorithms. The future looks bright as these technologies continue to impact society — from developing new drugs to helping doctors detect Alzheimer’s disease in patients.

Apart from risks, there are yet important questions that AI systems will need to resolve, including reimbursement for medical apps and addressing socioeconomic and cultural gaps in access and connectivity. We cannot avoid the digital disruption that is underway. To ensure that its ultimate impact elevates the quality of life of older people, we must make every effort to understand, and manage, its advance.

The post Can Artificial Intelligence Improve Older Adults’ Health? appeared first on Artificial Intelligence.

Combating the human aging process, either for health reasons or reasons more attuned to simply living for longer, has occupied considerable amounts of scientific inquiry. The solution to combating cell aging may lie with artificial intelligence.

The application of artificial intelligence is the research focus of start-up company Insilico Medicine. The medical technology company is developing artificial intelligence algorithms to study the ageing processes. The aim is to find new interventions in aging.

InSilico Medicine develops knowledge management system of annotated drugs and small molecules. The company foremost develops drugs for oncology and aging, based on a patient’s gene expression data. InSilico Medicine is based in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. Last year the company launched Aging.AI 2.0, which is a blood biochemistry predictor of human age. This built on the success of its Aging.AI 1.0 platform. Version 1.0 succeeded in using just 41 blood biochemistry biomarkers to test thousands of people. Through this type of analysis Insilico Medicine becames the first company to apply deep generative adversarial networks (GANs) to generating anti-cancer new molecules.

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