AI algorithm detects signs of Alzheimer's disease through language

With no cure and no straightforward way of diagnosing the disease, scientists are exploring every avenue when it comes to detecting Alzheimer's during its early stages. One group of researchers has turned its attention to subtle differences in the language of sufferers, and have developed an AI tool they say can pick up on these as a way of potentially screening for the disease. The research was carried out at New Jersey's Stevens Institute of Technology and focuses on the way some Alzheimer's sufferers express themselves. The disease, and others that cause dementia, can impact some parts of the brain that control language, meaning that sufferers can struggle to find the right words, perhaps using the word "book" to describe a newspaper, or replacing nouns with pronouns, for example. "Language deficits occur in eight to 10 percent of individuals in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease (AD), and become more severe and numerous during its later stages," lead author of the study, K.P. Subbalakshmi explains to New Atlas.