IBM’s Research and Development division has come out with a research that claims it is feasible to forecast the start of Alzheimer’s disease in people by studying their writing patterns. IBM specialists have claimed that a writing test can detect Alzheimer’s disease years before the first symptoms appear. People with a variety of neurological disorders have been shown to have a particular linguistic pattern that can act as an early warning indication. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been trained to detect changes in a person’s language before they develop neurological problems. Experts have enlisted 80 people in the research, all of whom are in their 80s.
Alzheimer’s disease has been identified in half of the subjects, while the other half were found to be healthy. Even yet, they were all cognitively sound seven and a half years prior. Participants in the Framingham Heart Study, a long-term study that requires physical and cognitive testing, have been invited to participate in this study. Before any of them developed Alzheimer’s disease, these participants took a writing exam. On an unsteady stool, they are instructed to depict a boy reaching up to get a cookie jar on a high shelf rack.
An artificial intelligence algorithm was used to analyse the participants’ word usage patterns, and the results revealed modest variances in language pattern. Repetitive word use has been found in a group of persons who were all cognitively normal at the time of the tool’s use. There are a number of spelling and capitalization mistakes in this piece. Using telegraphic language, experts have concluded that these individuals communicated with one other in a way that lacks subject and prepositional phrases like “the,” “is,” and “are.” It is those who fall within this category that are most likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.
Using an AI software, 75 percent of Alzheimer’s patients may be predicted accurately. It is critical, according to experts, to have basic tests that can detect early indicators of such mental diseases so that treatment may begin as soon as possible. A degenerative brain disorder can develop if early intervention is not implemented, according to their warnings. Speech and vocal alterations in patients with neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, ALS, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia have been observed for many years by experts. The IBM report, on the other hand, has made remarkable discoveries.
Researchers at the University of California, led by Dr. Michael Weiner, have indicated that the IBM study is the first to encompass healthy people and identify those who may go on to acquire Alzheimer’s some years down the road. Experts say that each mental illness results in a distinct shift in speech that occurs long before the patient is diagnosed. Apathy, a deterioration in judgement, self-control, and empathy are all characteristics of those who are at risk for mental illness. It is difficult to objectively quantify these factors. Speech, on the other hand, may be accurately quantified. During the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, scientists have noticed that patients’ speaking speed alters, with pauses distributed at random. Among these patients, word use also varies. They employ less esoteric terms.
These changes are directly linked to alterations in the frontotemporal parts of the brain. It appears that these changes are global, yet they are confined to the English language. IBM researchers have examined 34 other patients for instances of “flight of ideas,” which is when patients veer off course while conversing and spiral off their thoughts. A total of 96 persons have been examined by the team. Delusions have been found in around 59 of them. Schizophrenia was found in some of them, although it wasn’t in everyone. People who develop schizophrenia three years later may be accurately identified by the AI computer with 85% accuracy. The study’s findings have been published in The Lancet Journal EClinicalMedicine.
