TY - JOUR
T1 - Digital remote assessment of speech acoustics in cognitively unimpaired adults
T2 - feasibility, reliability and associations with amyloid pathology
AU - van den Berg, Rosanne L.
AU - de Boer, Casper
AU - Zwan, Marissa D.
AU - Jutten, Roos J.
AU - van Liere, Mariska
AU - van de Glind, Marie Christine A.B.J.
AU - Dubbelman, Mark A.
AU - Schlüter, Lisa Marie
AU - van Harten, Argonde C.
AU - Teunissen, Charlotte E.
AU - van de Giessen, Elsmarieke
AU - Barkhof, Frederik
AU - Collij, Lyduine E.
AU - Robin, Jessica
AU - Simpson, William
AU - Harrison, John E.
AU - van der Flier, Wiesje M.
AU - Sikkes, Sietske A.M.
PY - 2024/12
Y1 - 2024/12
N2 - Background: Digital speech assessment has potential relevance in the earliest, preclinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We evaluated the feasibility, test-retest reliability, and association with AD-related amyloid-beta (Aβ) pathology of speech acoustics measured over multiple assessments in a remote setting. Methods: Fifty cognitively unimpaired adults (Age 68 ± 6.2 years, 58% female, 46% Aβ-positive) completed remote, tablet-based speech assessments (i.e., picture description, journal-prompt storytelling, verbal fluency tasks) for five days. The testing paradigm was repeated after 2–3 weeks. Acoustic speech features were automatically extracted from the voice recordings, and mean scores were calculated over the 5-day period. We assessed feasibility by adherence rates and usability ratings on the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire. Test-retest reliability was examined with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). We investigated the associations between acoustic features and Aβ-pathology, using linear regression models, adjusted for age, sex and education. Results: The speech assessment was feasible, indicated by 91.6% adherence and usability scores of 86.0 ± 9.9. High reliability (ICC ≥ 0.75) was found across averaged speech samples. Aβ-positive individuals displayed a higher pause-to-word ratio in picture description (B = -0.05, p = 0.040) and journal-prompt storytelling (B = -0.07, p = 0.032) than Aβ-negative individuals, although this effect lost significance after correction for multiple testing. Conclusion: Our findings support the feasibility and reliability of multi-day remote assessment of speech acoustics in cognitively unimpaired individuals with and without Aβ-pathology, which lays the foundation for the use of speech biomarkers in the context of early AD.
AB - Background: Digital speech assessment has potential relevance in the earliest, preclinical stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). We evaluated the feasibility, test-retest reliability, and association with AD-related amyloid-beta (Aβ) pathology of speech acoustics measured over multiple assessments in a remote setting. Methods: Fifty cognitively unimpaired adults (Age 68 ± 6.2 years, 58% female, 46% Aβ-positive) completed remote, tablet-based speech assessments (i.e., picture description, journal-prompt storytelling, verbal fluency tasks) for five days. The testing paradigm was repeated after 2–3 weeks. Acoustic speech features were automatically extracted from the voice recordings, and mean scores were calculated over the 5-day period. We assessed feasibility by adherence rates and usability ratings on the System Usability Scale (SUS) questionnaire. Test-retest reliability was examined with intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs). We investigated the associations between acoustic features and Aβ-pathology, using linear regression models, adjusted for age, sex and education. Results: The speech assessment was feasible, indicated by 91.6% adherence and usability scores of 86.0 ± 9.9. High reliability (ICC ≥ 0.75) was found across averaged speech samples. Aβ-positive individuals displayed a higher pause-to-word ratio in picture description (B = -0.05, p = 0.040) and journal-prompt storytelling (B = -0.07, p = 0.032) than Aβ-negative individuals, although this effect lost significance after correction for multiple testing. Conclusion: Our findings support the feasibility and reliability of multi-day remote assessment of speech acoustics in cognitively unimpaired individuals with and without Aβ-pathology, which lays the foundation for the use of speech biomarkers in the context of early AD.
KW - Alzheimer’s disease
KW - Amyloid
KW - Digital biomarker
KW - Language
KW - Remote assessment
KW - Speech acoustics
U2 - 10.1186/s13195-024-01543-3
DO - 10.1186/s13195-024-01543-3
M3 - Article
C2 - 39090738
AN - SCOPUS:85200218441
SN - 1758-9193
VL - 16
JO - Alzheimer's Research and Therapy
JF - Alzheimer's Research and Therapy
IS - 1
M1 - 176
ER -