Voice Markers of Lexical Access in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease

Title:Voice Markers of Lexical Access in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease

Volume: 15 Issue: 2

Author(s): Juan J.G. Meilan*, Francisco Martinez-Sanchez, Juan Carro, Nuria Carcavilla and Olga Ivanova

Affiliation:

• Faculty of Psychology, University of Salamanca, Campus Ciudad Jardin-Avenida de la Merced 109-131, 37005 Salamanca,Spain

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease, mild cognitive impairment, anomic aphasia, acoustic analysis, speech, memory.

Abstract: Background: Recent studies have identified the correlation between dementia and certain vocal features, such as voice and speech changes. Vocal features may act as early markers of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Despite being present in non-pathological senescence and Mild Cognitive Impairment, especially in its amnesic subtype (aMCI), these voice- and speech-related symptoms are the first signs of AD. The purpose of this study is to verify whether these signs are related to deficits in lexical access, which appear early in AD.

Method: Anomic deficits in persons with MCI and AD are assessed through tests on verbal memory, denomination by confrontation, and verbal fluency. In addition, an acoustic analysis of speech is conducted in a reading task to identify the acoustic parameters associated with the groups analyzed, and their relation to the degree of anomic impairment observed in each one of them.

Results and Conclusions: The results show a direct relationship between the different acoustic parameters present in AD and the verbal fluency tests results.

Cite this article as:

Meilan J.G. Juan*, Martinez-Sanchez Francisco, Carro Juan, Carcavilla Nuria and Ivanova Olga, Voice Markers of Lexical Access in Mild Cognitive Impairment and Alzheimer's Disease, Current Alzheimer Research 2018; 15 (2) . https://dx.doi.org/10.2174/1567205014666170829112439