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A28 SCIENCE
Tuesday 18 July 2017

Hearing is believing: Speech may be a clue to mental decline

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE ency (the flow of speech mentia, Lewy body.
AP Chief Medical Writer and how many pauses and “Watching my parents de-
Your speech may, um, help filler words they used.) They cline into the awful world
reveal if you’re uh ... devel- used more pronouns such of dementia and being re-
oping thinking problems. as “it” or “they” instead of sponsible for their medical
More pauses, filler words specific names for things, care was the best and worst
and other verbal changes spoke in shorter sentences experience of my life,” he
might be an early sign of and took longer to convey said. “I want to help the
mental decline, which can what they had to say. researchers learn, further-
lead to Alzheimer’s disease, “Those are all indicators of ing medical knowledge of
a study suggests. struggling with that com- treatment and ultimately,
Researchers had people putational load that the cure.” Participants don’t
describe a picture they brain has to conduct” and get individual results — it
were shown in taped ses- supports the role of this test just aids science. Another
sions two years apart. Those to detect decline, said Ju- study at the conference
with early-stage mild cogni- lie Liss, a speech expert at on Monday, led by doc-
tive impairment slid much In this July 6, 2017 photo, Kim Mueller, left, administers a test to Arizona State University with toral student Taylor Fields,
Alan Sweet, in which he describes an illustration, as part of a
faster on certain verbal skills University of Wisconsin-Madison study on dementia. no role in the work. hints that hearing loss may
than those who didn’t de- Associated Press She helped lead a study be another clue to possible
velop thinking problems. in 2015 that analyzed doz- mental decline. It involved
“What we’ve discovered leader, Kimberly Mueller, will develop Alzheimer’s, ens of press conferences 783 people from the same
here is there are aspects explained. “The difference but many do — 15 to 20 by former President Ronald Wisconsin registry project.
of language that are af- here is, it is more frequent percent per year. To see if Reagan and found evi- Those who said at the start
fected earlier than we in a short period,” inter- speech analysis can find dence of speech changes of the study that they had
thought,” before or at the feres with communication early signs, researchers first more than a decade be- been diagnosed with hear-
same time that memory and gets worse over time. did the picture-description fore he was diagnosed ing loss were more than
problems emerge, said The study was discussed test on 400 people without with Alzheimer’s. She also twice as likely to develop
one study leader, Sterling Monday at the Alzheimer’s cognitive problems and co-founded a company mild cognitive impairment
Johnson of the University Association International saw no change over time that analyzes speech for over the next five years as
of Wisconsin-Madison. This Conference in London. in verbal skills. Next, they many neurological prob- those who did not start out
was the largest study ever About 47 million people tested 264 participants in lems, including dementia, with a hearing problem.
done of speech analysis for worldwide have dementia, the Wisconsin Registry for traumatic brain injury and That sort of information is
this purpose, and if more and Alzheimer’s is the most Alzheimer’s Prevention, a Parkinson’s disease. not strong evidence, but it
testing confirms its value, common type. In the U.S., long-running study of peo- Researchers could not es- fits with earlier work along
it might offer a simple, about 5.5 million people ple in their 50s and 60s, most timate the cost of testing those lines. Family doctors
cheap way to help screen have the disease. Current of whom have a parent for a single patient, but for “can do a lot to help us if
people for very early signs drugs can’t slow or reverse with Alzheimer’s and might a doctor to offer it requires they knew what to look
of mental decline. Don’t it, just ease symptoms. Doc- be at higher risk for the dis- only a digital tape recorder for” to catch early signs of
panic: Lots of people say tors think treatment might ease themselves. Of those, and a computer program decline, said Maria Car-
“um” and have trouble need to start sooner to 64 already had signs of or app to analyze results. rillo, the Alzheimer’s As-
quickly recalling names as do any good, so there’s early decline or developed Alan Sweet, 72, a retired sociation’s chief science
they age, and that doesn’t a push to find early signs. it over the next two years, state of Wisconsin worker officer. Hearing loss, ver-
mean trouble is on the way. Mild cognitive impairment according to other neuro- who lives in Madison, is tak- bal changes and other
“In normal aging, it’s some- causes changes that are logical tests they took. ing part in the study and known risks such as sleep
thing that may come back noticeable to the person In the second round had the speech test earlier problems might warrant
to you later and it’s not go- or others, but not enough of tests , they declined this month. His father had a referral to a neurologist
ing to disrupt the whole con- to interfere with daily life. faster on content (ideas Alzheimer’s and his mother for a dementia check, she
versation,” another study It doesn’t mean these folks they expressed) and flu- had a different type of de- said.q