In a bid to overcome language limitations posed by Alzheimer’s disease, a team of Chinese researchers developed a new voice-based approach to enable early detection of the neurodegenerative disease.The team led by Prof. Li Hai and his team at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences noted that with ageing global population, Alzheimer’s is becoming increasingly prevalent. This makes early detection critical for improving patient outcomes.
âLanguage decline is often one of the earliest indicators of cognitive decline,â the experts noted in the paper published in the IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics.
Currently, available automated speech analysis offers a non-invasive and cost-effective approach to detecting Alzheimer’s. However, these methods face significant challenges, including complexity, poor interpretability, and limited integration of diverse data types, which hinder accuracy and clinical applicability.