Automated Recognition of Alzheimer's Dementia

Alzheimer's dementia is a neurological disease that leads to physical and cognitive decline, thus adversely affecting the well-being and quality of life of patients. Although there is currently no cure for it, early diagnosis of this disease can facilitate the development of a better healthcare management plan and subsequently improve day-to-day living for affected individuals. Recent advances in social signal processing and automated mental health screening techniques have enabled the use of automated methods for the assessment of various types of ailments. Further, there has been a concerted effort in developing methods that can recognize early-onset Alzheimer's dementia based on speech-based biomarkers. This chapter reviews recent developments in the field of speech-based screening for Alzheimer's dementia in the context of two ADReSS (Alzheimer's Dementia Recognition from Spontaneous Speech) challenges organized at Interspeech 2020 and 2021 conferences. The outcomes of these challenges highlight the shortcomings within the current body of knowledge and the pathways for future research in this domain.