Automatic Spontaneous Speech Analysis for the Detection of Cognitive Functional Decline in Older Adults: Multilanguage Cross-Sectional Study.

BACKGROUND: The rise in life expectancy is associated with an increase in long-term and gradual cognitive decline. Treatment effectiveness is enhanced at the early stage of the disease. Therefore, there is a need to find low-cost and ecological solutions for mass screening of community-dwelling older adults. OBJECTIVE: This work aims to exploit automatic analysis of free speech to identify signs of cognitive function decline. METHODS: A sample of 266 participants older than 65 years were recruited in Italy and Spain and were divided into 3 groups according to their Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE) scores. People were asked to tell a story and describe a picture, and voice recordings were used to extract high-level features on different time scales automatically. Based on these features, machine learning algorithms were trained to solve binary and multiclass classification problems by using both mono- and cross-lingual approaches. The algorithms were enriched using Shapley Additive Explanations for model explainability. RESULTS: In the Italian data set, healthy participants (MMSE score≥27) were automatically discriminated from participants with mildly impaired cognitive function (20≤MMSE score≤26) and from those with moderate to severe impairment of cognitive function (11≤MMSE score≤19) with accuracy of 80% and 86%, respectively. Slightly lower performance was achieved in the Spanish and multilanguage data sets. CONCLUSIONS: This work proposes a transparent and unobtrusive assessment method, which might be included in a mobile app for large-scale monitoring of cognitive functionality in older adults. Voice is confirmed to be an important biomarker of cognitive decline due to its noninvasive and easily accessible nature.

[Acquired brain injury: a proposal for its definition, diagnostic criteria and classification]. / Dano cerebral sobrevenido: propuesta de definicion, criterios diagnosticos y clasificacion.

Acquired brain injury is a heterogeneous clinical concept that goes beyond the limits of the classical medical view, which tends to define processes and diseases on the grounds of a single causation. Although in the medical literature it appears fundamentally associated to traumatic brain injury, there are many other causes and management is similar in all of them, during the post-acute and chronic phases, as regards the measures to be taken concerning rehabilitation and attention to dependence. Yet, despite being an important health issue, today we do not have a set of diagnostic criteria or a classification for this condition. This is a serious handicap when it comes to carrying out epidemiological studies, designing specific care programmes and comparing results among different programmes and centres. Accordingly, the Extremadura Acquired Brain Injury Health Care Plan working group has drawn up these proposed diagnostic criteria, definition and classification. The proposal is intended to be essentially practical, its main purpose being to allow correct identification of the cases that must be attended to and to optimise the use of neurorehabilitation and attention to dependence resources, thereby ensuring attention is provided on a fair basis.

Daño cerebral sobrevenido: propuesta de definición, criterios diagnósticos y clasificación / Acquired brain injury: a proposal for its definition, diagnostic criteria and classification

El daño cerebral sobrevenido es un concepto clínico heterogéneo que supera la clásica visión médica, tendente a definir los procesos y enfermedades a partir de una etiología única. Aunque en la literatura médica aparece asociado fundamentalmente al traumatismo craneoencefálico, existen otras muchas causas y el abordaje de todas ellas es similar, durante las fases postaguda y crónica, en lo referente a las medidas de rehabilitación y atención a la dependencia. Sin embargo, a pesar de ser un importante problema de salud, hoy en día carecemos de unos criterios diagnósticos y de una clasificación para esta entidad. Esto supone un importante hándicap para la elaboración de estudios epidemiológicos, el diseño de programas asistenciales específicos y la comparación de resultados entre diferentes programas y centros. Por ello, el Grupo de Trabajo del Plan de Atención al Daño Cerebral Sobrevenido de Extremadura ha realizado esta propuesta de definición, criterios diagnósticos y clasificación, que tiene un carácter eminentemente práctico, con la finalidad de identificar correctamente los casos que deben ser atendidos y optimizar el uso de los recursos de neurorrehabilitación y atención a la dependencia, garantizando la equidad en la atención (AU)

Acquired brain injury is a heterogeneous clinical concept that goes beyond the limits of the classical medical view, which tends to define processes and diseases on the grounds of a single causation. Although in the medical literature it appears fundamentally associated to traumatic brain injury, there are many other causes and management is similar in all of them, during the post-acute and chronic phases, as regards the measures to be taken concerning rehabilitation and attention to dependence. Yet, despite being an important health issue, today we do not have a set of diagnostic criteria or a classification for this condition. This is a serious handicap when it comes to carrying out epidemiological studies, designing specific care programmes and comparing results among different programmes and centres. Accordingly, the Extremadura Acquired Brain Injury Health Care Plan working group has drawn up these proposed diagnostic criteria, definition and classification. The proposal is intended to be essentially practical, its main purpose being to allow correct identification of the cases that must be attended to and to optimise the use of neurorehabilitation and attention to dependence resources, thereby ensuring attention is provided on a fair basis (AU)