Rambling speech may indicate Alzheimer’s

RAMBLING speech may be an early sign of Alzheimer’s, research claims.

Trouble with connecting words could provide the first indication of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition marked by forgetfulness that predates dementia.

US scientists conducted an experiment in which 24 healthy older individuals and 22 people with MCI were asked to create a sentence out of three words.

Lead researcher Dr Janet Cohen Sherman, from Massachusetts General Hospital, said: “The MCIs are very long-winded.

“One significant difference is how many words MCI subjects used versus healthy older ones – it was a very significant difference.

“MCIs almost tended to get lost along the way, had more difficulty connecting the three words and also difficulty remembering the words.”

Dr Sherman was speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston.

She hopes within five years to develop the test into a method of detecting early changes that can predict Alzheimer’s disease.

“Language is complicated. We have to keep track of a lot when we want to convey a thought,” she added.