A automated assessment of cognition based on language?

<h3>Biography</h3> I undertook my undergraduate medical degree in Liverpool before working a junior doctor in London. I did a PhD, investigating the role of glia in Motor Neuron Disease at the University of Sheffield under the supervision of Dame Professor Pamela Shaw. I completed my STR training and worked as an NHS consultant for four years, with a specialist interest in cognitive disorders, before taking up a Senior Lecture position at the University of Sheffield in 2018. I have been PI on three phase 1 commercial studies. I have been co-lead for the Dementia and neurodegeneration disorder Clinical Research Network for Yorkshire and Humber for 10 years and am currently the chair of the ABN Specialist Interest Group in Cognitive Disorders. My main research interests are into developing non-invasive diagnostic tests for early dementia or cognitive impairment using automated analysis of language and electroencephalography (EEG). The early detection of memory problems is important for patient care and wellbeing. However, memory clinics are currently oversubscribed with waiting times to be seen in a secondary care memory clinic are between 0–104 weeks in the UK. The newly approved drugs in the USA to treat Alzheimer’s disease will add extra demand on services and especially on detecting people in the prodromal stages of disease. I am investigating a fully automated cognitive assessment tool that utilises responses to a computerised clinician in memory clinic and post-stroke settings. I co-created CognoSpeak (www.cognospeak.com) with Heidi Christensen (Professor of Computer Scientist). Our approach developed from two strands of research. One, that people with Alzheimer’s disease have subtle but detectable change in language at an early stage in disease and secondly that a conversation analysis approach is useful in the diagnostic work up of people with neurological disorders including those that cause dementia and Functional Cognitive Disorder. CognoSpeak^TM engages the patient in a conversation, asking memory-probing questions inspired by those used in outpatient consultations and also collect picture descriptions and verbal fluency tests as these are simple and easy ways to collect verbal responses. We have continually involved community and PPIE partners in the development of CognoSpeak^TM and within our current NIHR i4i grant have co-applicants from Israac, Somali Community groups and direct funding for research champions working within Israac to lead workshops, disseminate information about dementia and the project and recruit participants from the Somali community.