Dr Maria Liakata

University of Warwick, UK

m.liakata@warwick.ac.uk

Sensing language for dementia monitoring and diagnosis

Why it is important to find innovative ways for diagnosis and monitoring of dementia

• It is estimated that 41% of people currently living with dementia do not have a formal diagnosis.

• Both false positive and missed diagnoses can be detrimental to both dementia sufferers and their carers, as well as the economy overall.

• Current methods for diagnosis are expensive and intrusive (including brain scans and expensive blood and spinal fluid tests)

• Innovative and non-invasive methods are sought for early diagnosis and monitoring of progression.

Language, dialogue and dementia• Studies have shown that language usage can be affected

by dementia.• Interpersonal communication, emotions and humour, all

conveyed by language, can also be affected.• Studies of authors before and after the onset of dementia

compared to authors who never had dementia showed a dramatic change in :• Vocabulary usage• Use of syntax• coherence between sentences

What our project is about• If we could observe and automatically analyse

language changes over time for everyday people, we could have an effective, low-cost, non-intrusive means of dementia diagnosis and monitoring of disease progression.

• How can we do this in a way that engages people living with dementia?

Collecting dialogue data and written logs based on images

• The importance of dialogue and communication for people living with dementia is becoming increasingly better understood.

• Sarah Reed from http://www.manyhappyreturns.org/ has developed a set of cards containing everyday images from past decades to help facilitate the communication between people living with dementia and their carers and families, often from a younger generation.

Our project goals

1. Create a platform for collecting longitudinal conversation data between people living with dementia and their carers as well as written logs by people living with dementia on the basis of meaningful images from the past.

2. Use the longitudinal data collected to develop computational techniques for studying patterns of language change in terms of syntax, vocabulary and coherence.

Tablet application for collecting dialogue and written data

Select the pictures you would like to talk about

Page 2

Tell me about…

Page 3

Tell me about: Record your voice

Page 5

Tell me about: Write about your experience

Page 8

Project Partners

• Dr Maria Liakata, University of Warwick, PI• Dr Matt Purver, Queen Mary University London, co-I• Prof Martin Underwood, University of Warwick, co-I• Clinvivo: spin-out company specialising in Electronic Data Capture.

• Sarah Reed, Many Happy Returns• Volunteers from the Alzheimer’s Society.

Contact Details• We are in the process of recruiting participants.• We are currently funded by the Warwick Innovation

Fund and looking for external funding.• If you are interested in find out more about our project:

“Sensing language for dementia monitoring and diagnosis”

Please get in touch with Dr Maria LiakataM.Liakata@warwick.ac.uk

THANK YOU!!!