Spanish rehabilitation doctors warn of AI self-treatment risks for musculoskeletal pain
Spanish rehabilitation physicians have warned that long waiting times in the health system are pushing patients with musculoskeletal conditions to self-treat using generative AI tools like ChatGPT. The doctors note that therapeutic exercise is a medical treatment requiring physician supervision, and that AI systems can produce plausible but incorrect or fabricated responses that may worsen injuries.
What happened
The Sociedad Española de Rehabilitación y Medicina Física (SERMEF) warned that long waiting times in Spain's health system are pushing patients with musculoskeletal conditions including lower back pain, neck pain, and knee problems to use generative AI tools like ChatGPT to find exercises and self-treat symptoms.
SERMEF's president Helena Bascuñana stated that the average wait time in Spain's National Health System for rehabilitation services for common conditions like osteoarticular pathologies and arthritis is around four months, causing many patients to seek solutions without medical supervision.
Reported impact
Therapeutic exercise is part of medical treatment and requires physician indication and supervision, not general self-administration, according to SERMEF. The main risk identified is AI hallucination—plausible but incorrect or fabricated responses that can delay urgent care or initiate harmful behaviors such as exercises that worsen injuries rather than cure them.
Index analysis
SERMEF acknowledged that AI tools can improve understanding of diagnoses, tests, and treatments, and help patients prepare for consultations, but noted that the broad information they provide always requires human validation.
The physicians emphasized that the rehabilitation physician is the one who guarantees safety, clinical context, and correct treatment indication, as therapeutic exercise must be adapted to each patient's specific clinical situation with defined objectives.
Classification
Sources and evidence
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