Skip to main content

ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Artif. Intell.
Sec. Medicine and Public Health
Volume 7 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/frai.2024.1438012

Doctor AI? A Pilot Study Examining Responses of Artificial Intelligence to Common Questions Ask By Geriatric Patients

Provisionally accepted
Ian Moore Ian Moore 1*Christopher Magnante Christopher Magnante 1Jennifer Mathis Jennifer Mathis 1Scott Mooney Scott Mooney 1Shereen Haj-Hassan Shereen Haj-Hassan 2Maria Cottingham Maria Cottingham 2Prasad R. Padala Prasad R. Padala 1Evelyn Embry Evelyn Embry 1
  • 1 Central Arkansas Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, North Little Rock, United States
  • 2 Tennessee Valley Healthcare System, Veterans Health Administration, United States Department of Veterans Affairs, Nashville, Tennessee, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: AI technologies have the potential to transform patient care. AI has been used to aid in differential diagnosis and treatment planning for psychiatric disorders, administer therapeutic protocols, assist with interpretation of cognitive testing, and patient treatment planning. Despite advancements, AI has notable limitations and remains understudied and further research on its strengths and limitations in patient care is required. This study explored the responses of AI (Chat-GPT 3.5) and trained clinicians to commonly asked patient questions Methods: Three clinicians and AI provided responses to five dementia/geriatric healthcarerelated questions. Responses were analyzed by a fourth, blinded clinician for clarity, accuracy, relevance, depth, and ease of understanding and to determine which response was AI generated.Results: AI responses were rated highest in ease of understanding and depth across all responses and tied for first for clarity, accuracy, and relevance. The rating for AI generated responses was 4.6/5 (SD= .26); the clinician s' responses were 4.3 (SD= .67), 4.2 (SD= .52), and 3.9 (SD= .59), respectively. The AI generated answers were identified in 4/5 instances.Conclusions: AI responses were rated more highly and consistently on each question individually and overall than clinician answers demonstrating that AI could produce good responses to potential patient questions. However, AI responses were easily distinguishable from those of clinicians. Although AI has the potential to positively impact healthcare, concerns are raised regarding difficulties discerning AI from human generated material, the increased potential for proliferation of misinformation, data security concerns, and more.

    Keywords: Artificial intelligence (AI), immersive technologies, Geriatrics, Dementia, Patient feedback, Diagnosis & Treatment Planning

    Received: 24 May 2024; Accepted: 08 Jul 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Moore, Magnante, Mathis, Mooney, Haj-Hassan, Cottingham, Padala and Embry. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ian Moore, Central Arkansas Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, North Little Rock, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.