A Polish nurse has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) solution for learning to communicate with dementia patients.
For this idea, Adrian Nowakowski has been awarded a prestigious distinction by the Queen of Sweden - the Queen Silvia Nursing Award.
Adrian Nowakowski works in the Department of Neurology of the Central Clinical Hospital of the University Clinical Centre of the Medical University of Warsaw, and studies computer science.
He decided to combine the two fields to create a tool that 'could help health care workers and patients'.
'I addressed the communication challenges faced by medical staff, especially nurses caring for patients with dementia.
I have developed an AI simulator that helps them to learn and practice effective communication', he told PAP.
He explains that a person with dementia often does not remember what happened recently, but may clearly recall events from years or decades ago.
His aim is primarily intended to benefit nursing students. The idea is that the student turns on the phantom and talks to artificial intelligence that 'pretends' to be a patient.
The future nurse tries to persuade AI, for example, to take medication.
The AI behaves like elderly people with dementia sometimes do, for example it refuses to swallow pills. The student must find a way to convince the machine to change its mind.
'You need to develop certain techniques, understand this person, their point of view - so that you can enter into a conflict-free dialogue.
If we don't know that the patient suffers from dementia and we start talking as we would to a healthy person, we will encounter really big difficulties', Nowakowski says.
He says that while working on the project, he combined several currently available tools.
'I created appropriate prompts, i.e. instructions, and introduced them to various artificial intelligence models responsible for +sight+ or text processing', he explains.
The phantom prepared in this way can recognize the image of the environment, e.g. objects, shapes, people, and recognizes speech. It can process information to provide answers.
Appropriate prompting makes the machine 'perceive' reality and react like a patient suffering from dementia.
'I had to write a characterization of such a patient so that the language model would know what to do.
The patient has flashes of mental clarity, which means that sometimes the conversation is similar to one with a person without such disorders.
After a while, however, the patient may not remember what just happened, and become upset or irritated by this.
Such patients tend to be lost, they may not recognize their surroundings and familiar people. I included all this in the prompt', says Nowakowski.
'If you use the word +tachycardia+ when talking to a patient, at the end of the simulation the artificial intelligence will point out to us that this professional term was most likely incomprehensible to the patient.
It will advise that in such a case it is better to say +heart problems+', says Nowakowski.
He adds that his solution can be used not only in medical communication exercises, but in many areas such as basic nursing classes.
'Throughout the first year, students have classes in laboratories and learn on phantoms. Artificial intelligence could be used there and thus offer an additional year of communication training', he says.
In addition, better communication with a patient with dementia means more effective care and lower stress levels for the patient and medical staff.
Nowakowski believes that artificial intelligence could also help patients' relatives - family members could exercise with the machine when the elderly person shows the first symptoms of dementia.
'Advanced dementia does not appear suddenly, it is a long process. Therefore, it is worth using all methods to prepare for contact with a person whose disease is progressing', he says.
On the question of whether advanced robots may one day replace medical staff, Nowakowski thinks it is unlikely.
'If we were to think about science fiction, robots could one day support families of patients or medical caregivers, for example by doing shopping or relieving them in the kitchen.
However, I am convinced that machines cannot replace humans in patient care. Firstly, a robot may cause anxiety in a person with dementia. Secondly, in the case of patients suffering from dementia, contact with another person is extremely important, it can even delay the progression of the disease. After all, what counts in medical care is empathy and human care'.
