Development of Alzheimer's Disease Screening Technology Using Narrative Speech Qualitative Analysis of Utterance with a Dictionary of Emotional Expressions

Abstract

 ［Objective］ We investigate emotional expressions in Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) patient narratives to realize AD screening. ［Method］ We collected people’s episodes through crowdsourcing and developed Japanese Inquiry and Word Count (JIWC) to analyze emotional expressions. We analyze patient’s utterance contents quantitatively using JIWC. ［Material］ (1) After recruiting 18 examinees of 53-90 years old (mean: 76.89), they were divided into two groups based on Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores: the AD group (n＝9, MMSE≤21) and the healthy control (HC) group (n＝9, MMSE>21). (2) After recruiting 42 participants diagnosed dementia of 69-98 years old (mean: 19.79), they were divided into two groups based on Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) scores: the Dementia group (n＝23, MMSE≤21) and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) group (n＝19, MMSE>21). ［Result］ Significant differences were confirmed for the usage of ＜anxiety＞ in the Dementia group and AD group. ［Discussion］ Generally, Dementia patients feel anxiety because of symptoms of Dementia. The results suggest that JIWC could quantitatively evaluate the Dementia features.