Detecting fatigue in multiple sclerosis through automatic speech analysis

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Marcelo Dias - , ki:elements GmbH (Author)
  • Felix Dörr - , ki:elements GmbH (Author)
  • Susett Garthof - , University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, Department of Neurology (Author)
  • Simona Schäfer - , ki:elements GmbH (Author)
  • Julia Elmers - , Department of Neurology, Center of Clinical Neuroscience, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (Author)
  • Louisa Schwed - , ki:elements GmbH (Author)
  • Nicklas Linz - , ki:elements GmbH (Author)
  • James Overell - , F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, University of Glasgow (Author)
  • Helen Hayward-Koennecke - , F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG (Author)
  • Johannes Tröger - , ki:elements GmbH (Author)
  • Alexandra König - , ki:elements GmbH, Université Côte d'Azur (Author)
  • Anja Dillenseger - , Department of Neurology, Center of Clinical Neuroscience, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (Author)
  • Björn Tackenberg - , F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, University of Marburg (Author)
  • Tjalf Ziemssen - , Department of Neurology, Center of Clinical Neuroscience, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (Author)

Abstract

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic neuroinflammatory disease characterized by central nervous system demyelination and axonal degeneration. Fatigue affects a major portion of MS patients, significantly impairing their daily activities and quality of life. Despite its prevalence, the mechanisms underlying fatigue in MS are poorly understood, and measuring fatigue remains a challenging task. This study evaluates the efficacy of automated speech analysis in detecting fatigue in MS patients. MS patients underwent a detailed clinical assessment and performed a comprehensive speech protocol. Using features from three different free speech tasks and a proprietary cognition score, our support vector machine model achieved an AUC on the ROC of 0.74 in detecting fatigue. Using only free speech features evoked from a picture description task we obtained an AUC of 0.68. This indicates that specific free speech patterns can be useful in detecting fatigue. Moreover, cognitive fatigue was significantly associated with lower speech ratio in free speech (ρ = −0.283, p = 0.001), suggesting that it may represent a specific marker of fatigue in MS patients. Together, our results show that automated speech analysis, of a single narrative free speech task, offers an objective, ecologically valid and low-burden method for fatigue assessment. Speech analysis tools offer promising potential applications in clinical practice for improving disease monitoring and management.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number1449388
JournalFrontiers in human neuroscience
Volume18
Publication statusPublished - 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

ORCID /0000-0001-8799-8202/work/171553702

Keywords

Keywords

  • automated speech analysis, fatigue, machine learning, multiple sclerosis (MS), speech