Artificial Intelligence and Manual Therapies

“What do you think of those massage chairs? Should I use my massage gun at home?” These are questions regarding the idea of robots, machines, Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) and replacing human touch. Those that work in an industry dependent on human contact for results such as careers of massage, physical therapy. Occupational therapy, chiropractic and all forms of hands-on professions.

Clients/Patients get the best results from having a human perform a task that requires skill from years of experience and a vast amount of knowledge but wait…couldn’t a machine do the same? In my line of work in massage, I map where injured muscles are prior to beginning a session. Could a machine do this? How? A person would lie on the table and speak whenever a muscle is touched? Touched by whom? Or in this case, what? Another machine? How would the machine know how hard to press? A.I. does know the human body. In our internet database we have the outline of human bodily systems that are closely related to treating muscle injuries:

• muscle
  
• nerve
  
• Skeletal

If a full body scan could be taken of the person, A.I. could map where each muscle was located thus taking the need for anatomical knowledge of the massage therapist out of the equation. Currently applications on your therapists’ phone gives them a quick reference guide for body movements and associated pathologies before they step into the treatment area with you. If A.I. could determine muscle tone by mastering palpation techniques with precision and therefore distinguishing whether deeper pressure was necessary to a specific area or the entire body, then manual therapists may only become operators of said machines. Machine learning is a subset of A.I. in that a machine can draw a conclusion and develop a strategy to solve a problem from data given. For example, if you are someone that just had a baby chances are you’re carrying that child a lot. An experienced manual therapist knows to assess the following areas neck

• shoulder
  
• upper chest
  
• back
  
• arms
  

This is information that has been stored in a human brain and comes up easily when someone says that they are a new mother. Machine learning would take the data of certain repetitive movements that a person does in their life and match it with the data of which muscles correspond to which movements. Because this information already exists on the internet it would not be difficult to pinpoint which muscles will most likely be hurting. Even if the client has a poor mind-body connection and cannot remember or pinpoint areas of pain with A.I. it wouldn’t be necessary. The need for a person to be connected to their body and remember what hurts would be eliminated. On one point this would be a great convenience yet on another aspect making us lazy about not listening to our bodies. After a session, machine learning would collect the data of previous sessions and make recommendations of which muscles to follow up on, the same way online shopping or movie sites recommend new selections based on your history. Making an appointment to see your doctor, even with telehealth and getting a script for an CT scan, MRI or an X-ray is inconvenient for most people. However these tools are phenomenal in being able to detect certain things. We could eliminate the possibility of nerve compression, inflammation in the muscle tissue and tears. Of course, a human being could test for muscle tears by sensing and observing inflammation with our hands so until diagnostic machines are more affordable for massage clinics then I don’t see A.I. taking over this aspect.

It would save time and energy to let an algorithm solve for the location of painful muscles. I see large leaps in the science of device development for surgeries and the ability to prolong or sustain life. Clearly these are very important endeavors. However, for the rest of medicine, I see a severe lag in this technology for manual therapies. Perhaps there is a resistance from the public and providers. Could there be a respite in taking some type of refuge in an activity void of machines? The peaceful space of a treatment room is tech free which bonds therapists and clients. Human connection is desperately needed in medical treatments and sought after by the public. There is a need for a small sanctuary away from technology when we are connecting with other humans. However, my hope is that we can have both a human experience once therapy begins combined with the helpfulness of A.I. This helps providers collect important data which will make nearly every appointment efficient and worth the time and financial resources of its patrons.