Disease modifying therapies for children with spinal muscular atrophy - parents' experiences of hopes, grief and need for rehabilitation for their child.

Discussions of artificial intelligence in health invariably describe it as transformative. While much of this impact remains aspirational, accumulating evidence suggests the capacity of this technology to profoundly change how health care is delivered, at every level. But transformative does not necessarily ensure that these changes will be for the better, particularly as they relate to mental health care. Despite advances in genomics and neuroscience that have impacted other areas of medicine, the care of people with psychiatric disorders has changed little. Those with these illnesses continue to face tremendous challenges: limited access to high-quality care; inconsistencies in diagnosis; variability in care; and inherent limitations of the treatments themselves. While AI is typically invoked as a strategy for addressing these limitations, such progress cannot be assumed – and cannot be assumed to be entirely beneficial. Alongside the potential benefits, this review therefore considers the risks that widespread adoption of AI might pose to mental health care, and suggests strategies that may help to mitigate them. Broadly speaking, application of AI could broaden access to care and contribute to more uniform care. Two applications illustrate such benefits. The first is application of language models to drive chatbots delivering evidence-based therapies. At present, access to cognitive-behavioral therapy, for example, can be challenging. There is also no assurance that a given provider is actually providing evidence-based care, and that the care is of sufficient quality. Incorporating chatbots could relieve some of this demand – for example, providing an initial introduction to CBT techniques that might be sufficient for some individuals – and allow the limited supply of CBT therapists to focus on more severely affected patients. A recent pilot randomized wait-list controlled study suggested benefit in a heterogeneous group of disorders.