Sonde Health Presents Breakthrough Findings on Cognitive Fitness Vocal Biomarkers at 2024 Alzheimer's Association International Conference

BOSTON — July 30, 2024 — New research from Sonde Health confirms that vocal biomarker monitoring technology can differentiate between people with higher and lower cognitive function. The findings, which were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference (AAIC) in Philadelphia, reinforce the efficacy of vocal biomarkers as a noninvasive tool for monitoring cognitive health, particularly in older adults.

In two studies, participants from Kerala, India, and the Montefiore-Einstein Center for the Aging Brain in the Bronx, New York, performed various voice tasks, ranging from simple sentence reading to complex picture description. Using these voice samples, researchers evaluated prosodic and acoustic speech features, such as speech rate and pause duration, and compared the findings with the results of participants’ neuropsychological screenings.

Participants with lower cognitive function exhibited altered speech rates and pause duration. Specifically, tasks requiring higher mental effort showed up to 25% variation in speech patterns in both cohorts, yielding a significant statistical correlation between vocal biomarkers and cognitive impairment.

"These preliminary results are a significant step forward in our mission to harness the power of voice for health monitoring," said Erik Larsen, Senior Vice President of Clinical Development & Customer Success at Sonde Health and lead author of the poster. "The ability to detect cognitive decline through vocal analysis opens up new possibilities for early intervention and continuous monitoring of conditions like mild cognitive impairment (MCI), making cognitive health tracking more accessible and scalable than ever before."

Sonde’s voice-based cognitive fitness tracker assesses brain exertion, or cognitive effort, through 30-second voice samples obtained through the smart devices people are already using every day. It analyzes eight vocal characteristics and then provides a simple score, ranging from 0 to 100, that allows users to track changes in their cognitive state and manage their mental well-being.

Previous research found that vocal biomarkers reliably reflect an individual’s respiratory and mental health. This latest study further supports the potential of voice as a comprehensive health monitoring tool.

Sonde Health's voice-based health monitoring solutions are being deployed across various industries, including military and defense, payers, providers, pharmaceutical companies, enterprise customers, device OEMs, and digital health solutions.

For more information on Sonde Health’s latest research and to learn more about how Sonde's vocal biomarker platform leverages voice-enabled apps and devices to assess and improve health outcomes, visit https://www.sondehealth.com/.

About Sonde Health

Sonde Health is the global leader in voice-based health tracking and data insights. Sonde's vocal biomarker API/SDK serves enterprise apps and devices spanning consumer wellness to population health. Leveraging a best-in-class voice data set and clinical research with over 1.2 million samples from 85,000+ individuals on four continents, Sonde uses advanced audio signal processing, speech science, and AI/machine learning to sense and analyze subtle vocal changes due to changes in a person's physiology to provide key insights into health and well-being. www.sondehealth.com

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