How AI Can Support Person-Centered Care

Person-centered care is a guiding principle for neuro-rehabilitation in the adult cognitive communication disorders population (Hinkely, 2023). The World Health Organization report on person-centered care defines this model as one where the patient plays an active role in their own health care and decisions while receiving support and patient education. (World Health Organization, 2015). Additionally, the WHO defines person-centered care as healthcare organized around the needs of the individual rather than the individual’s disease or handicapping condition.  

In their definition of person-centered care in neuro-rehabilitation, Terry and Kayes state that effective treatment is co-created with the patient and the clinician (Terry and Kayes, 2020). Hinckley et al. (2023) further posit that with person-centered care, individuals must be able to understand information about their condition to engage in dialog with their clinician and express their “values, preferences, and decisions” during the rehabilitation process. Values and preferences include the development of treatment goals that are meaningful to the individual. In a multiple case study research study with mild TBI patients, Brown et al. (year) found that clinician-client interactions around goal setting improved functional outcomes and increased client motivation (Brown et al., 2021).

Another principle of person-centered care is client self-education. For person-centered care to be effective, individuals must be able to understand information about their own condition and express their preferences to their healthcare providers (Hinkely and Jayes, 2023; Pegg et al., 2005). While people with aphasia may struggle with receiving and understanding information and expressing preferences and decisions due to cognitive impairments (Hinkely and Jayes, 2023), clients with TBI and particularly mild TBI, typically have relatively spared communication and can exert agency and judgment about their treatment with support from the clinician (Brown et al., 2021).

Person-centered care can also extend from collaborative goal setting (Brown et al., 2021) and patient self-education, to the selection of therapy activities and modification of therapy activities based on performance and feedback. Imazue and Goral (2024) in their framework of self-regulated learning (SEL) for people with aphasia emphasize the role of the client in all components of the intervention process including selection and modification therapy activities. In an existing model in educational psychology, Imazue and Goral define self-regulated learning as “the use of metacognitive abilities during feedback to modulate a goal-oriented behavior” towards the outcome of a goal. A key principle of Imazue and Gorla’s SEL framework is giving the client the opportunity to provide feedback throughout the intervention process including the selection of task selection. The framework highlights the role of SLPs in “collaborating with PWA to create tasks that capture the interests of PWA and are in tune with their ability level, which can motivate their engagement during aphasia treatment and improve treatment outcomes.”

Our ASHA talk presents a patient who used ChatGPT in some of the capacities outlined above. After his evaluation, the patient used ChatGPT as a tool to understand concussion and to interpret the subtests such as the Stroop color and word test on his neuropsychology evaluation, which had little functional significance for him initially. The patient consulted with the director of the rehabilitation center to which he was assigned to see if the center was open to him using AI as a collaborative tool, and to him co-directing his rehabilitation. The rehabilitation center and the SLP followed the patient’s lead, and together the patient and the SLP used ChatGPT to design and modify treatment activities that would be meaningful and motivating to the patient. This approach, while novel, was grounded in evidence-based treatment frameworks, and guiding principles of patient-centered care in neuro-rehabilitation with the adult population.