🍋 What if you could understand that medical document tonight, without bothering anyone?

Anyone can now have a text rewritten in a few seconds, for free, in their own language. A document full of technical terms can become a text anyone can understand, without waiting for the next appointment. This option already exists — and almost no one knows what to ask it, or what never to share with it. This article answers both.

A consumer artificial intelligence tool can rewrite a medical text in plain words, translate it, summarize it and prepare a list of questions to ask — for free, in a few seconds. It makes no diagnosis and does not replace any professional advice: it sometimes gives wrong answers, stated with the same confidence as the right ones.

What this article does not do: it gives no medical advice, it does not interpret any result, and it never says that a tool replaces the professional who follows your parent. It explains what this kind of tool can do to help you understand — nothing more.

A language model, like the ones several companies offer — Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot — can do four things with a text: rewrite it, translate it, summarize it, and prepare a list of questions from it. It cannot do a fifth: it does not make a diagnosis, it does not tell you what to do, it does not replace anyone.

An international health institution has put it in black and white, in a document devoted to the use of these tools in health: they can help answer questions, look up information and summarize a text — and they can produce statements that are false, inaccurate or incomplete. The same text names a specific risk: trusting an answer without checking it. 👉 the WHO guidance on artificial intelligence in health

Researchers who study this risk have a name for it. A reference review on the subject calls it a “hallucination” — content that looks true, and is not. 👉 the reference review on AI hallucinations

Yvan Keyna says it in his book Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?: an entire chapter is devoted to artificial intelligence, to get quick answers when everything speeds up. 👉 Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?

You may know this moment: you walk out of an appointment with a sheet of paper in your hand, and the questions come to you in the car — too late to ask them. You reread the document at home, once, twice, and some words still make no sense.

You don't dare call back over something so small: it seems too minor to bother anyone. That feeling has a simple name — you feel overwhelmed, and a little embarrassed about it.

This is exactly the moment when a rewriting tool can help. The request to copy, word for word, into any of these tools:

“Explain this text to me as if I had no medical training, and list the questions I should ask.”

This is not an idea out of thin air. In one study, a tool of this kind rewrote fifty hospital discharge summaries into versions a non-specialist could understand; doctors then reviewed each version to check its accuracy and completeness. Readability clearly improved — and the reviewers also found omissions. 👉 the study on fifty rewritten documents

A systematic review, which brings together thirty-eight studies and nearly thirteen thousand rewritten documents, reaches the same conclusion on a larger scale: readers find the text easier, and clinicians generally judge it accurate. A small share of errors that matter remains — hence a simple rule: always reread what the tool wrote before you rely on it. 👉 the systematic review of thirty-eight studies

Before an appointment, you can also ask the tool to help you put your questions into words ahead of time, instead of discovering them too late, in the car. The request looks like this: “Here is what I know about my parent's situation [describe it in one or two sentences]. List the questions I should ask the professional who follows them.”

An exploratory study tested a similar approach: language models asked to generate follow-up questions while a person was writing a message to their health care professional. Five doctors rated these questions, compared with the ones a professional would have asked; the authors themselves write that the real effect on the visit has yet to be established. 👉 the exploratory study on follow-up questions

So this is not yet a proven method for preparing a list of questions before an appointment — it is a use you can try, not a demonstrated result. Arriving with a written list is not challenging the professional who follows your parent: it saves them time, and it makes sure you forget nothing.

Some messages are hard to write yourself: telling your siblings about a fall, asking a service for help, explaining a situation to someone who doesn't know it yet. You can dictate, or type, the idea as it comes, and ask the tool to turn it into a clear first draft.

You always have the last word: you reread it, you correct it, you send it — or not. On mobile, this dictation already exists with several companies, with no special setup: it turns speech into text, in your language. 👉 the help center on mobile dictation

This same idea — using the tool to say what you can't manage to put into words on your own — is developed in the book Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?, on communicating with your parent and with others. 👉 Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?

An established, documented, measured fact: these tools sometimes give wrong answers, stated with the same confidence as the right ones. A team of doctors measured this directly, in a study: 222 health questions, asked the way the general public asks them, submitted to four consumer tools, 888 answers evaluated one by one.

Some of these answers were judged problematic, others unsafe. The authors conclude that answers to medical questions asked by the general public can be wrong or dangerous. 👉 the study on 222 health questions

That is precisely why this article never tells you to ask the tool a medical question — only to have it rewrite what the professional has already written. The cross-checking rule comes down to three steps.

Ask for the source of what it states. Ask the same thing a second time, to see whether the answer changes. Finally, check with the professional who follows your parent, before acting on anything.

There is one simple rule, before any other: never share with an online tool a document that carries a name, an identity, or a complete health record. This is not excessive caution — several companies say so themselves.

A leading international health institution puts it in black and white: these tools “may not protect sensitive data, including health data, that a user provides to them.” The rule that follows is simple — the less you give, the better you protect yourself. 👉 the WHO statement

One of the main companies goes further, in its own documentation: human reviewers may read some of the conversations that are sent. The instruction, in black and white, is clear — “don't enter confidential information that you wouldn't want a reviewer to see.” 👉 the Gemini Apps Privacy Hub

The solution is simple: you copy the text of the document by hand, without the name, without the date of birth, without the file number — only the medical content you want translated. This is precisely the caution developed in the book Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?, on using technology to take care of a parent — 👉 Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?

None of this requires installing anything complicated. A free account with several of these companies — Claude and Gemini, for example — is enough to rewrite a document, dictate a message or list questions. They also offer a paid monthly subscription: it is not necessary for what this article describes.

These tools work in many languages, and can translate from one language to another — but quality varies by language, as a small exploratory study measured. 👉 the exploratory study on translation into several languages And they are not available the same way everywhere: one company says so itself, price and access “vary by country or region.” 👉 the official Gemini page

Tonight, three steps are enough to get started. Copy one of the requests in this article, and try it on the document you couldn't make sense of. Retype the text without any identifying details before you share it with the tool. Ask the professional who follows your parent again, next time, with your questions ready.

None of these three steps calls for any particular skill. None of them costs anything, and none replaces the other two.

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Sources used (14)

#	Fact cited	Link
1	WHO, guidance of January 18, 2024: useful applications of large models in health, and risks (false/incomplete statements, trusting without checking)	the WHO guidance on artificial intelligence in health
2	Huang et al., literature review 2025 (ACM): definition of the word “hallucination”	the reference review on AI hallucinations
3	Zaretsky et al., JAMA Network Open, 2024: 50 hospital discharge summaries rewritten, readability up, omissions found	the study on fifty rewritten documents
4	Alabed et al., The Lancet Digital Health, 2026: systematic review of 38 studies, ~13,000 simplified documents, residual clinically significant errors	the systematic review of thirty-eight studies
5	Liu et al., JAMIA, 2024: exploratory study on generating follow-up questions, clinical effect not established	the exploratory study on follow-up questions
6	Anthropic, help center: dictation available on mobile, all plans, including free	the help center on mobile dictation
7	Draelos et al., npj Digital Medicine, 2026: 222 health questions asked to 4 consumer tools, 888 answers evaluated, share judged problematic/unsafe	the study on 222 health questions
8	WHO, statement of May 16, 2023: the tools may not protect sensitive data provided by the user	the WHO statement
9	Google, “Gemini Apps Privacy Hub”: human reviewers, instruction “don't enter confidential information”	the Gemini Apps Privacy Hub
10	Khanna et al., Journal of Personalized Medicine, 2024: exploratory study, translation/simplification in 6 languages, uneven quality by language	the exploratory study on translation into several languages
11	Google Gemini, official pages: free plan + paid subscriptions, availability and price “vary by country or region”	the official Gemini page
12	The book Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents? — using artificial intelligence for quick answers (reference 1/3)	Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?
13	The book — communicating with your parent and with others (reference 2/3)	Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?
14	The book — using technology to take care of a parent (reference 3/3)	Help! Who's Going to Take Care of My Parents?