Researchers To Use AI to Study Chronic Pain in Rural Older Adults
/By Crystal Lindell
Virginia Tech researchers will receive nearly half a million dollars from the federal government to use artificial intelligence (AI) to study chronic pain in older adults living in rural areas.
The study is being led by Huaiyang Zhong, PhD, an Assistant Professor in the Grado Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Virginia Tech. He was awarded a $460,260 grant from the National Institute on Aging.
People in rural areas have significantly higher rates of chronic pain than those who live in big cities. They’re also at a big disadvantage when it comes to getting their pain treated, due to the distances many have to travel to see a doctor.
Zhong and his team hope AI can help improve pain assessments and clinical decision making by doctors, with the goal of reducing pain and pain-related complications in older patients.
“I became interested in chronic pain because it's incredibly common, but also incredibly complicated,” Zhong said in a press release. “Pain is not just a single diagnosis, and it's not a number on a scale like a lot of medical diagnoses. Pain itself can affect mobility, mental health, sleep, cognitive functions, and overall quality of life. It's a multidimensional thing.”
Zhong hopes to learn how chronic pain evolves, which patients are more vulnerable to poor outcomes, and how healthcare systems can treat them more effectively.
It all starts with the information that is sometimes buried in clinical notes. Researchers will use machine learning and natural language processing to analyze patient records and create “risk dashboards” to help doctors recognize when a patient is at risk of complications, such as depression or cognitive impairment.
“I ultimately want to help clinicians move toward more personalized pain management,” Zhong said. “This means understanding not just how much pain somebody has, but the broader health context surrounding that pain.”
Zhong is not a medical doctor, but has a PhD in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University. He thinks his background in industrial and systems engineering (ISE) can help solve complex healthcare problems.
“Machine learning can tell us which patients are at elevated risk, but as ISE researchers, we ask the next questions: What should we do with that information? How should limited healthcare resources be allocated? How does this information feed into clinical workflows? How does using this actually improve clinical outcomes?” Zhong said.
Robert McNamara, PhD, a clinical psychologist and Associate Professor in Virginia Tech’s School of Medicine, is a collaborator on the project. He looks forward to investigating the medical problems faced by rural older adults with chronic pain.
“We foresee this work leading to early, actionable insight for providers in rural areas, enabling appropriate intervention and referral, and ultimately improving quality of life for this vulnerable population,” said McNamara.
As a rural resident myself, who also suffers from chronic pain, I am always glad to see more resources going to research like this. It will be interesting to see if AI is actually able to offer new insights.
Many of the older adults I know in northern Illinois who have chronic pain already know how to improve their healthcare and quality of life. First and foremost, they want access restored to opioid medication.
There’s also a high need for making telehealth doctor appointments easier for older adults to access. In-home care is another high priority. It’s a chore to go to a doctor who might be a two-hour drive away. If there was a program where a traveling doctor could come to a rural community for a day, that would be a massive help.
Hopefully, AI offers real, practical insights into these types of problems, and all the other issues rural chronic pain patients suffer from.
