Can AI Tools Like ChatGPT Help with Physiotherapy and Sports Injury Advice?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing how people access health information. Tools like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, and Claude can now answer questions about injuries, exercises, and recovery in seconds. It’s no surprise that patients and athletes are turning to these platforms for advice on managing pain or training.
But how reliable is AI for physiotherapy and sports injury advice — and can it replace a person-centred assessment?
The Power of AI in Physiotherapy
AI tools can be a useful starting point. They’re able to:
Provide general explanations of common more straight forward conditions such as tears, fractures.
List evidence-based treatment strategies (progressive loading, mobility, strengthening).
Suggest exercise examples with simple descriptions.
Make information accessible in a way that feels supportive and easy to understand.
For someone wanting to learn the basics, AI can be an good entry point.
Why Prompts and Interpretation Matter
AI is only as good as the prompts it’s given. In clinic, we often see how people describe their symptoms in ways that don’t reflect the clinical picture.
For example:
A patient may describe a pain as “nerve pain” simply because it feels sharp.
But true radicular nerve pain has very specific hallmarks: burning, shooting, or electric sensations that follow a nerve pathway (dermatome), often with numbness or weakness.
If you input “nerve pain” into ChatGPT, the advice will focus on sciatica-like symptoms — which may have nothing to do with the sharp muscular pain you’re actually experiencing.
This single mislabelling can completely shift the advice pathway, leading to generic guidance that doesn’t apply to your reality. This is something that is extremely important in your assessment and is the reason why a good Physio or sports injury practitioner will delve into the specifics of your symptoms and ask a lot of follow up questions, not just go off your perception of what you are feeling.
Person-Centred Care vs Generic AI Advice
The biggest limitation of AI is that it delivers generalised information, while the best rehabilitation is always person-centred and completely individual to you.
In our experience, what makes the difference between a slow, frustrating recovery and a quick, successful one is specificity and nuance:
How your pain behaves over 24 hours.
How you respond to different types of loading (strength, endurance, plyometric).
Your lifestyle factors — sleep, stress, work demands.
Your sport, position, or training schedule.
Your personal goals — from finishing a HYROX to running a marathon to simply picking up your kids without pain.
AI doesn’t have the ability to integrate this context. It can only pull from general guidelines. In contrast, a physiotherapist interprets all of these variables in real time and tailors your plan accordingly.
That’s why no two rehab programmes in our clinic look the same, even if two people present with what seems like the same injury.
The Best Way to Use AI
The most effective way to use AI is as a supplementary tool:
Learn terminology and understand the broad concepts for more straight froward injuries.
Explore general exercise ideas.
Use it to ask better questions when you see a clinician.
But the real progress comes when that information is combined with an expert assessment, objective testing, and a tailored plan built around you.
Our Perspective at The Injury & Performance Clinic
At The Injury & Performance Clinic, we embrace technology. Alongside AI-powered tools, we use cutting-edge performance technology such as VO₂ Master for metabolic testing and VALD ForceDecks for strength and biomechanics. These provide us with objective data that we combine with individual assessment and person-centred care.
AI may offer a starting point, but it cannot replace:
Hands-on assessment
Clinical reasoning
Tailored rehab programmes
Ongoing adaptation based on your progress
This specificity and nuance is where the real difference is made.
Takeaway
AI tools like ChatGPT can provide general physiotherapy and sports injury advice, but their usefulness is limited by how accurately symptoms are described and the lack of individualisation in their outputs.
The best injury management is always person-centred, specific to your symptoms, goals, and context. That’s why at The Injury & Performance Clinic, we combine the latest technology with expert, tailored care to help you recover faster, perform better, and stay resilient.
