5 days ago
Scientists discover speech habit that could indicate Alzheimer's
Certain ways of speaking can indicate cognitive decline, according to research.
Around 90,000 people in Scotland live with dementia, and it is estimated that two thirds of these cases are Alzheimer's. But while the condition has a range of signs, notably a decline in memory, a new study has discovered a certain speech trait that could foreshadow the degenerative disease.
The study, conducted by the University of Toronto, discovered that how fast someone speaks, and how hesitant they are in their choice of words can serve as an indicator for Alzheimer's. Lethologica, which is the inability to think of a certain word, is associated with cognitive decline, and the scientists aimed to analyse this phenomenon further.
The researchers asked 125 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 90 to describe a scene in detail. They were shown pictures of everyday objects while listening to audio that aimed to either confuse them or help them identify the objects in the image.
One example of this from the study is that if participants were shown a picture of a broom, the audio could say 'groom', which helps them to remember the rhyming word.
But the less helpful audio could also offer a related word like 'mop', which can temporarily confuse the brain of the participant.
It was found that those who spoke faster in the initial easier task faired better and were faster at the second more difficult task.
And as predicted, older patients were slower and showed more signs of cognitive decline than younger participants.
"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.
"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."
This slowing down of the brain is known as 'processing speed theory', and is central to conditions associated with cognitive decline, such as Alzheimer's.
The findings support the theory that a decrease in memory is not the only sign of cognitive decline, but that the overall processing speed of the brain slows down with conditions such as Alzheimer's and dementia.
Science Alert reports that some AI algorithms have even been able to predict Alzheimer's with an accuracy of 78.5 percent using speech patterns of patients alone.
And this is not the first study to focus on the link between speech and Alzheimer's.
Previous research has shown that people who have more signs of amyloid plaque in their brains, which is a textbook mark of Alzheimer's, are 1.2 times more likely to experience problems with their speech.
A study by Stanford University last year also found that longer pauses and slower speech rates were associated with higher levels of tangled tau proteins, which is another classic sign of Alzheimer's.
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