Alzheimer’s Dementia

Recently, artificial intelligence and machine learning in general have demonstrated remarkable performances in many tasks, from image processing to natural language processing, especially with the advent of deep learning (DL). Along with research progress, they have encroached upon many different fields and disciplines. Some of them require high level of accountability and thus transparency, for example, the medical sector. Explanations for machine decisions and predictions are thus needed to justify their reliability. This requires greater interpretability, which often means we need to understand the mechanism underlying the algorithms. Unfortunately, the blackbox nature of the DL is still unresolved, and many machine decisions are still poorly understood. We provide a review on interpretabilities suggested by different research works and categorize them. The different categories show different dimensions in interpretability research, from approaches that provide “obviously” interpretable information to the studies of complex patterns. By applying the same categorization to interpretability in medical research, it is hoped that: 1) clinicians and practitioners can subsequently approach these methods with caution; 2) insight into interpretability will be born with more considerations for medical practices; and 3) initiatives to push forward data-based, mathematically grounded, and technically grounded medical education are encouraged.

A Survey on Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI): Toward Medical XAI

Objective: To describe the prevalence of cognitive impairment among elderly primary care patients and to compare diagnostic evaluations and use of health services among patients with and those with...

Documentation and evaluation of cognitive impairment in elderly primary care patients

Over the last two decades, the possibility of finding (and curing) the reversible dementias has gained wide currency. As a result, multiple bodies (1–4) and individuals (5–9) have recommended more or less extensive workups for the demented patient, hoping thereby to ensure that no potentially reversible cases are missed.

The Reversible Dementias: Do They Reverse?

The 170-year-long debate in the medical literature about the ethics of prescribing placebos in medical therapeutics needs to be reevaluated in light of recent placebo research and improved understanding of the placebo effect as an integral part of the doctor-patient relationship. It has traditionally been assumed that deception is an indispensible component of successful placebo use. Therefore, placebos have been attacked because they are deceptive, and defended on the grounds that the deception is illusory or that the beneficent intentions of the physician justify the deception. However, a proper understanding of the placebo effect shows that deception need play no essential role in eliciting this powerful therapeutic modality; physicians can see nondeceptive means to promote a positive placebo response in their patients.

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The Lie That Heals: The Ethics of Giving Placebos

Chronic dementia syndromes are often assumed to be untreatable, and thus patients with these disorders are neglected and their condition worsens. Many interventions, however, can improve t...

Dementia in the elderly: an analysis of medical responsibility.

The attention of physicians is being drawn to the issue of nuclear weapons and nuclear war, creating controversy about whether a political concern is appropriate for health care professionals. The use of nuclear weapons would incur human death and injury on a scale both unprecedented and unimaginable, and possibly damage the ecosphere far beyond the weapons' immediate effects. Medical supplies and facilities would be nonexistent; no meaningful medical response would be possible. A physician's responsibility to prevent nuclear war is based on the imperative to prevent a devastating incurable disease that cannot be treated. Such an imperative is consistent with the historic tradition of the social responsibility of health professionals, and can be justified by philosophical argument.

Medical Responsibility and Thermonuclear War

ON NOV 15, 1983, a sentence was added to the text of the oath taken by physicians in the Soviet Union at the time of their graduation from medical school. The new sentence reads, "Recognizing the danger which nuclear weaponry presents for mankind, [I promise] to struggle tirelessly for peace, and for the prevention of nuclear war." While the role of physicians in educating the public and policymakers about the risks of the nuclear arms race and about the medical consequences of the use of nuclear weapons has been the subject of lively discussion and debate in the United States and in other countries during the last several years, this example of a call for professional responsibility in this area has gone largely unnoticed. While there are distinct differences in the perspective of the Soviet oath from that of physicians in the United States, we share with Soviet physicians an

Andrew L. Jameton

Papers

Dementia in the elderly: an analysis of medical responsibility.

Medical Responsibility and Thermonuclear War

The Physician's Oath and the Prevention of Nuclear War

Power of the placebo: a dialogue on principles and practice.

The physician's oath and the prevention of nuclear war