Tag: Healthcare provider

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Opinion: The AI licensure debate is missing the point of licensure

A cardiologist reviews an echocardiogram flagged by an algorithm she did not choose, trained on data she has never seen, deployed by a health system that did not ask for her input. The algorithm recommends a diagnosis. She disagrees. She overrides it. The patient does well.

No one will remember this moment. But if she had acquiesced and the patient suffered harm, she would be the one in the deposition, with her license on the line. Not the engineer who built the algorithm. Not the vendor who sold it. Not the health system that deployed it.

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Lower limb rehabilitation in chronic incomplete SCI: a randomized controlled trial protocol comparing combined TMS-tSCS neuromodulation vs. tSCS alone

BackgroundSpinal cord injury (SCI) affects 15.4 million people worldwide, with a substantial proportion of incomplete SCI patients remaining non-ambulatory, highlighting the importance of motor function recovery and mobility in rehabilitation. While transcutaneous spinal cord stimulation (tSCS) has emerged as a promising non-invasive neuromodulation technique for enhancing motor recovery, the therapeutic potential of combining tSCS with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) remains largely unexplored. This combination may leverage the complementary mechanisms of supraspinal and spinal neuromodulation to enhance corticospinal tract plasticity and functional motor outcomes.ObjectiveTo evaluate the efficacy and safety of combined TMS-tSCS intervention compared to tSCS alone for improving lower extremity motor function in individuals with chronic incomplete spinal cord injury.MethodsThis prospective, randomized, controlled, assessor-blinded clinical trial will enroll 60 participants with chronic (>12 months post-injury) incomplete spinal cord injury (AIS C or D) aged 18–65 years from Alexandra Hospital, Singapore. Participants will be randomized 1:1 to receive either combined TMS-tSCS (intervention group) or tSCS with sham TMS (control group) for 16 weeks (32 sessions). The primary outcome is change in Lower Extremity Motor Score (LEMS) from baseline to 16 weeks. Secondary outcomes include walking speed (10-Meter Walk Test), functional independence (Spinal Cord Independence Measure-III), spasticity (Modified Ashworth Scale), electromyography of the lower limb muscles and neurophysiological measures of corticospinal excitability.Expected outcomesWe hypothesize that combined TMS-tSCS will yield superior improvements in LEMS (≥2 points greater improvement) compared to tSCS alone, with enhanced corticospinal tract plasticity as evidenced by neurophysiological measures.Clinical trial registrationClinicalTrials.gov, identifier: NCT07595497.