According to new information published by Sciencealert, research by scientists at the University of Toronto (Canada) shows that as people age, their way of speaking may more clearly reflect cognitive conditions. According to the research team, daily speaking speed is closely related to changes in the brain.
Mr. Jed Meltzer - cognitive neurologist, a member of the research team at the University of Toronto, said that the slowdown in speaking speed may reflect cognitive decline. Therefore, this factor needs to be included in clinical assessments to detect early risks of memory decline.
The phenomenon of "head of the tongue" or forgetting words can appear at any age. However, this situation becomes more obvious after the age of 60. To clarify the cause, scientists conducted a survey of 125 people aged 18 to 90 through image description and word recognition tests.
The results showed that people with faster natural speaking speeds often respond better in cognitive tests. This result reinforces the view that cognitive decline is not only in memory, but due to the slowdown of the brain's entire information processing process.
This study also shows that older people tend to speak slower, with more pauses or buffer words in communication. This may be a sign of decline in language processing.
Not only stopping at observing behavior, many recent studies have also combined technology to analyze voice. A study by the University of Boston (USA) shows that artificial intelligence algorithms can predict the risk of Alzheimer's disease through voice with an accuracy of about 78.5%.
Research in 2024 by Stanford University found a link between speech characteristics and tau protein accumulation in the brain. People with high tau protein levels often speak slower, with more pauses, although they can still answer correctly questions about memory.
This shows that changes in speech can appear early, even when the patient has not shown clear signs of memory decline. In other words, the brain still finds the correct answer but takes longer to process.
However, experts emphasize that the appearance of biological markers such as amyloid plaques or tau protein does not necessarily mean Alzheimer's disease. More long-term studies are needed to determine the accuracy of these markers.
Scientists believe that analyzing speech, especially in natural communication situations, can open up a new approach in early detection of Alzheimer's. This is expected to be a simple, inexpensive method that can be widely deployed in the future.
