{"id":146611,"date":"2025-04-28T13:21:57","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T17:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611//?p=146611"},"modified":"2025-08-07T17:07:40","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T21:07:40","slug":"can-ai-provide-a-better-way-to-relieve-pain-for-hundreds-of-millions-of-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611///news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611//www.ucf.edu/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611//news/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611//can-ai-provide-a-better-way-to-relieve-pain-for-hundreds-of-millions-of-people/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611//","title":{"rendered":"Can AI Provide a Better Way to Relieve Pain for Hundreds of Millions of People?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the near future, when people on all seven continents can use AI to heal or prevent musculoskeletal pain, we could very well look to a large room at the back of the Education Complex at 麻豆原创 and say this is one of the places where everything began to change. It/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019s an interesting space. In fact, if you miss the sign over a threshold in the lobby (Institute of Exercise Physiology and Rehabilitation Science) you might wonder if you/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019ve walked into a lab, a rehab clinic, or a fitness center. There are treadmills and mats, resistance bands and treatment tables, and voices of researchers in mid-instruction./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n

In an area set apart with privacy dividers, Assistant Professor Colby Mangum rolls a chair up to a portable ultrasound machine and a laptop. Aside from the signage, these are the first giveaways that you/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019ve entered an important intersection of research, technology, physical health, and profound possibilities./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201cWe want the lab to be as /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2018real world/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019 as possible, so we can address real problems with real patients,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201d Mangum says of what she calls the REhabilitation, Athletic assessment and DYnamic imaging (READY) Lab. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201cIt/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019s the only way to make a genuine impact on the future of musculoskeletal health./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201cWe want the lab to be as /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2018real world/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019 as possible, so we can address real problems with real patients./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201d /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2014 Colby Mangum, assistant professor/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n

Before diving into her research, it/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019s helpful to know something about the researcher. Mangum/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019s career aligns with the cues in this active lab. She started as an athletic trainer while also becoming an expert in the use of ultrasound imaging as a researcher so she could blend all of her interests into finding better answers for people with chronic pain and for those who want to prevent it. In 2018, that personal mission led her to 麻豆原创 where she was asked to grow the athletic training research agenda at the College of Health Professions and Sciences. Today, thanks to internal seed funding, she/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019s ramping up her research focus on improving diagnostics and treatment courses for the most widespread pain in the world: Low back pain, which affects more than 600 million people globally./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n

Mangum has seen enough cases of lower back pain to spark her curiosity about the source of the pain and how muscles around the lower back and spine are affected./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201cIt oftentimes seems to connect to the core,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201d she says. /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201cI/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019m talking about well-conditioned athletes, younger people and older people. It goes back to an imbalance in those three layers of abdominal muscles: external obliques, internal obliques, and transverse abdominis./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n

MRI and CT are the most often used imaging modalities to assess musculoskeletal conditions, but MRI is expensive and CT exposes patients to radiation. In addition, neither is good at imaging tissue movement, which can yield important information about the physical properties of tissues.  Ultrasound, on the other hand, is safe, low cost, portable, and can capture tissue dynamics during rehab sessions./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201cUltrasound has the potential to unlock answers, especially for low back pain for a large population scale,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201d Mangum says, /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201cbut first we need to overcome some issues we face./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n

Those issues primarily come down to the training it takes for clinicians and researchers to acquire good quality ultrasound images and the time it takes for them to manually measure ultrasound readouts. There/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019s also high subjectivity in those measurements. Mangum has believed for years that some ultrasound automation would be the only way to reach hundreds of millions of people and begin making a transformational impact. She also knew she couldn/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u2019t do something that big alone in this lab./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n

/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201cIt became clear that if I could collaborate with an AI expert,/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201d Mangum says, /news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201cit would be the gamechanger./news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/u201d/news/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/146611/n