Scientists Identify a Trait in Speech That Foreshadows Cognitive Decline

 

 With your already higher risk of dementia/MCI post stroke, is your doctor testing for this to create a baseline for you? And what EXACTLY is your doctor's protocol for preventing dementia? Doesn't have one! You don't have a functioning stroke doctor! Why are you seeing them if they are that incompetent?

Your risk of dementia, has your doctor told you of this?

1. A documented 33% dementia chance post-stroke from an Australian study?   May 2012.

2. Then this study came out and seems to have a range from 17-66%. December 2013.`    

3. A 20% chance in this research.   July 2013.

4. Dementia Risk Doubled in Patients Following Stroke September 2018

The latest here: 

Scientists Identify a Trait in Speech That Foreshadows Cognitive Decline

Early signs of Alzheimer's disease may be hidden in the way a person speaks, but it's not yet clear which details of our diction are most critical for diagnosis.A study from 2023 suggests that as we age, how we say something may matter more than what we say. Researchers at the University of Toronto think the pace of everyday speech may be a better indicator of cognitive decline than difficulty finding a word. Lethologica, also known as 'tip of the tongue' phenomenon, is experienced by young and old alike. But as we grow older, finding the name for things can become more challenging, especially over the age of 60.To explore why that is, researchers at the University of Toronto asked 125 healthy adults, between the ages of 18 and 90, to describe a scene in detail.5 Early, Speech-Related Signs You're at Risk of Alzheimer's Disease Next, the participants were shown pictures of everyday objects while listening to audio that was designed to confirm or confuse them. For instance, if participants were shown a picture of a broom, the audio might say 'groom', which helps them recall the word through rhyme. But on the flip side, the audio might also offer a related word like 'mop', which can lead the brain astray, momentarily. The faster a person's natural speech in the first task, the more quickly they came up with answers in the second task. The findings align with the 'processing speed theory', which argues that a general slowdown in cognitive processing lies at the very center of cognitive decline, not a slowdown in memory centers specifically. "It is clear that older adults are significantly slower than younger adults in completing various cognitive tasks, including word-production tasks such as picture naming, answering questions, or reading written words," explained a team led by University of Toronto psychologist Hsi T. Wei. Experts issue warning over rising threat that could leave thousands of Americans stranded: 'It will be a dynamic that doesn't stop' "In natural speech, older adults also tend to produce more dysfluencies such as unfilled and filled pauses (e.g., "uh" and "um") in between speech and have a generally slower speech rate."In a 2024 piece for The Conversation, dementia researcher Claire Lancaster said that the study from Toronto "has opened exciting doors… showing that it's not just what we say but how fast we say it that can reveal cognitive changes. "Recently, some AI algorithms have even been able to predict an Alzheimer's diagnosis with an accuracy of 78.5 percent using speech patterns alone. Other studies have found that patients with more signs of amyloid plaque in their brain are 1.2 times more likely to show speech-related problems. The verbal fluency test can offer insights into which regions of the brain are affected by cognitive decline.(Motortion/Canva)Amyloid plaques are a hallmark of Alzheimer's disease. In 2024, researchers at Stanford University led a study that found longer pauses and slower speech rates were also associated with higher levels of tangled tau proteins, another hallmark of Alzheimer's.
There's a Critical Thing We Can All Do to Hold Alzheimer's Symptoms at Bay "This suggests that speech changes reflect development of Alzheimer's disease pathology even in the absence of overt cognitive impairment," the authors of the study concluded The groundwork is still being laid, but scientists are getting closer to decoding the nuances of human speech to figure out what our words are saying about our brains. The 2023 study was published in Aging, Neuropsychology, and Cognition

One-Minute Speech Test Could Help Assess Dementia Risk

 With your already higher risk of dementia/MCI post stroke, is your doctor testing for this to create a baseline for you? And what EXACTLY is your doctor's protocol for preventing dementia? Doesn't have one! You don't have a functioning stroke doctor! Why are you seeing them if they are that incompetent?

Your risk of dementia, has your doctor told you of this?

1. A documented 33% dementia chance post-stroke from an Australian study?   May 2012.

2. Then this study came out and seems to have a range from 17-66%. December 2013.`    

3. A 20% chance in this research.   July 2013.

4. Dementia Risk Doubled in Patients Following Stroke September 2018

The latest here:

One-Minute Speech Test Could Help Assess Dementia Risk

BUDAPEST — Analyzing temporal changes in people's speech could be a simple way of detecting mild cognitive impairment to see whether there is a risk of developing dementia in the future, suggests research.

János Kálmán, MD, PhD, and colleagues at the University of Szeged in Hungary have developed an automated speech analysis approach called the Speech-Gap Test (S-GAP Test) that is unique because it focuses on the temporal changes made when someone talks. This means it does not overcomplicate matters by also assessing the phonetics and semantics of speech, Kálmán told Medscape Medical News. 

Kálmán presented his findings at the 32nd European Congress of Psychiatry. 

Temporal Speech Parameters

The test analyzes parameters such as how quickly someone speaks, whether they hesitate when they talk, how long the hesitation lasts, and how many silent pauses they make. This can be done with a mere 60-second sample of speech, Kálmán said, noting that other automated speech and language tools currently in development need much longer audio samples. 

"We tried different approaches and we finally ended up with the temporal speech parameters because these are not culture-dependent, not education-dependent, and could be more reliable than the semantic parts of [speech] analysis," he explained.

The analysis of temporal speech parameters is also not language-dependent. Although the S-GAP Test was developed using audio samples from native Hungarian speakers, Kálmán and his collaborators have shown that it works just as well with samples from native English and German speakers. They now plan to validate the test further using samples from native Spanish speakers. 

For Screening, Not Diagnosis

Currently, "the only purpose of this tool would be initial screening," Kálmán said at the congress. It is not for diagnosis, and there is no intention to get it registered as a medical device. 

A national survey of primary care physicians conducted by Kálmán and collaborators showed that there was little time for performing standard cognitive tests during the average consultation. Thus, the original idea was that the S-GAP Test would be an aid to help primary care physicians quickly flag whether a patient might have cognitive problems that needed further assessment at a memory clinic or by more specialist neurology services. 

The goalposts have since been moved, from developing a pure telemedicine solution to a more widespread application that perhaps anyone could buy and download from the internet or using a smartphone. 

Kálmán doesn't discount developing a more sophisticated version of the S-GAP Test in the future that combines temporal speech parameters with biomarkers for mild cognitive impairment or Alzheimer's disease and could be used in memory clinics and by neurologists for the purpose of diagnosis.

Detect to Prevent?

The big question is: What happens to all the people that could be flagged as needing further assessment using tools such as the S-GAP Test? 

Tackling risk factors for dementia will probably be key, said Robert Perneckzy, MD, MBA, professor of translational dementia research at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Imperial College London, and the University of Sheffield.

According to the Lancet Commission on dementia, there are 12 potentially modifiable risk factors for dementia. Their influence varies throughout the life course, but certain early events, such as the level of education attained, can't be modified in an older patient. 

That said, there are many risk factors that might still be influenced later in life, such as adequately treating comorbid conditions such as diabetes, and addressing alcohol consumption and smoking practices. 

"We can do things in terms of personal risk, risk mitigation, which have a huge effect on dementia risk much later in life," said Perneckzy.

"The speech-based assessments are another opportunity to save our time as doctors to do assessments before someone comes to the memory clinic," he said.

The S-GAP Test is under development by the University of Szeged. Kálmán is a co-inventor. Perneckzy had no relevant conflicts of interest but has helped validate the S-GAP Test in the German language. 

Sara Freeman is a freelance medical journalist based in London, England.