Maia Recognized at American Headache Society & Medscape

The American Headache Society Annual Scientific Meeting in San Diego June 13-16, 2024 was, as promised, jam packed with presentations, research and over 500 posters on key aspects of headache and migraine management.
 
In addition to a number of key updates on medications and new formulations we’ll be covering in furture blogs, there were interesting findings on seeking care for migraine presented by Dr. Elizabeth K. Seng, PhD.  Her team found that about 1/3 of patients with migraine were reluctant to seek medical help.  There were many reasons for this including, most notabley, not being sure a clinician could offer them anything more than they were doing for themselves.  The respondents also noted that most of the information they received was from friends, family and the internet making the quality and information of this information incredibly crucial. 
 
These finding point back to our first blog and the Mayo Study which discussed the important needs of those with migraine when they worked with healthcare professionals.  It also pointed to our team’s research and two poster presented at the same meeting which were featured on Medscape’s summary of top findings at the meeting.
 
Our first poster[i] “ChatGPT for migraine patient education: Ready for prime time?” noted that ChatGPT4 performed adequately for some migraine education areas but provided sub-optimal responses and outdated responses in others important areas.  Basically if patients are predominately relying on the internet as a source for migraine education, it may not provide the information needed to help them access evidence based treatment. 
 
This is what motivated us towards our second poster[ii] and to create our Migraine AI Assistant (Maia) which optimized internet responses (such as those received from ChatGPT) to provide more evidence based and personalized answers.  This was accomplished both by having clinicians like myself in the loop to vet answers to make sure they were timely and understandable as well as having a group of patients provide feedback to confirm their benefit. 
 
Our research found that within a week of using Maia, patients were able to increase their knowledge and confidence in pursing treatment in 11 of 12 (91%) of core areas from medications to procedures to diet and lifestyle.  In fact, the only areas where knowledge did not increase was symptoms of migraine which arguably those with migraine know better than anyone else. 
I think one of the reasons this area was covered by the media was because the internet has become such a place for gathering medical information.  The key here is how to harness that information with the appropriate guard-rails so that as those with migraine turn to the internet, the information they receive is able to provide the knowledge and confidence needed to optimized migraine treatment which 1/3 are not currently able to do.
 
That is why I was pleasantly surprised that as we questioned users of Maia regarding how they would use it optimally, they mentioned that it would be great if they could print out the findings and share them with the healthcare team in treatment discussion. 
 
We have taken this feedback to allow Maia to collect the dialogue so it can do exactly what users have requested, to create an evidence based prompt for future interactions when planning treatment.  In addition, we are beginning the next phase of evaluation where users of Maia, both patients can caregivers, can provide feedback on how Maia is supporting them as well as areas where it can do even more. 
 
We look forward to your comments.  Dr Bonakdar

 
[i] Bonakdar RA, Sweeney M, Simi J, Youngblood C. ChatGPT for migraine patient education: Ready for prime time? Poster 517. American Headache Society Annual Meeting, 2024.

 
[ii] Sweeney M, Bonakdar RA. Does a migraine AI assistant (Maia) improve patient knowledge and confidence? A pilot evaluation. Poster 516.American Headache Society Annual Meeting, 2024.