Artificial intelligence (AI) analysis of caregiver-recorded videos has the potential to diagnose infantile epileptic spasm syndrome, according to a new study. In infants with the condition even small delays in diagnosis and ensuing treatment can result in poor outcomes including intellectual disability, autism, and worse epilepsy. Parents who observe unusual behavior often seek advice from friends and family members and receive false reassurance that such behavior isn’t unusual. Even physicians may contribute if they are unaware of this rare syndrome.
The idea to employ AI came from looking at videos of infants on YouTube and the realization that many patients upload them in an effort to seek advice. The researchers built a model that they trained to recognize infantile spasms using openly available YouTube videos, including 141 infants, 991 recorded seizures, and 597 non-seizure video segments, along with a non-seizure cohort of 127 infants with an accompanying 1385 video segments. The group is now developing an app that will allow parents to upload videos that can be analyzed using the model.
