Double vision, headache, crooked mouth, difficulty speaking, legs or arms becoming weak on one side of the body, dizziness, tingling. It all happens quickly, but the effects of a stroke can last a lifetime, leaving those affected by it to deal with paralysis, memory problems, difficulty speaking. However, time can make a difference: both in noticing the symptoms and in treating the disease once you arrive at the hospital. Thanks maybe also to the help of artificial intelligence.
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by Barbara Orrico
Every minute counts
To remember how much time is everything when it comes to stroke, is the motto of the campaign launched on the occasion of the World Day against cerebral stroke, on October 29: “Minutes can save lives”. But in addition to saving life, time also saves from the sequelae of stroke and the cost – human and social – of related disability. According to the Association for the Fight against Cerebral Stroke (ALICe. Italia Odv), in fact, every second of delay means the loss of 32 thousand neurons, two million every minute. The equivalent is estimated to be 4 days of healthy life lost every minute. And the death of neurons means the loss of function, the greater the slower the intervention time. So this year the appeal to stem what experts do not hesitate to call an epidemic – it is estimated that 1 in 4 people will have a stroke in their lifetime, over 12 million this year alone, 150,000 Italians, with over 6 million victims – is the one to pay attention to the symptoms, alerting the emergency services early.
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Speed up care
The problem of timeliness, however, does not only concern the identification of symptoms and access to the hospital. Time continues to be precious even once you have crossed the threshold of the centers, where diagnosis and treatment can be shortened thanks to the use of artificial intelligence.
“The idea is not to replace doctors, but rather to speed up the treatment process,” he explains David Golanmachine learning expert and cofounder together with the neurosurgeon Chris Mans by Viz.ai, the Israeli startup that first received approval (from the American FDA) for its artificial intelligence system for the early detection of strokes.
Help from artificial intelligence
Viz.ai is actually more than a software to support the early diagnosis of stroke: it is an artificial intelligence system to coordinate health care, shortening intervention times, improving access to treatments and thus reducing the risk of disability. . The principle behind the technology is to compress the different stages of medical examinations and consultations around a suspected case of stroke, with a new logic. In fact, if the traditional model provides, after the patient’s arrival at the hospital, the execution of the imaging tests, with the intervention first of the technician, then of the radiologist and then the sending of the results to the emergency medicine department, and then the consultancy, after clinical examinations, with neurologists and surgeons, in sequence, the Viz.ai model acts in parallel.
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Team multidisciplinare in real time
In fact, once the patient has undergone the imaging exams, the images are shared within a cloud and automatically analyzed thanks to a deep learning system to identify the presence of signs potentially attributable to a stroke. If this happens, Golan explains, notifications are issued that reach a multidisciplinary team that in real time and in parallel, can view the images on their smartphone, sharing impressions and opinions, comparing each other. In this way, a process that usually takes hours can take place within a few minutes, saving time and optimizing the results of the treatments.