Rambling speech ‘indicator’

Turning into an old windbag may be an early sign of mental difficulty that can lead to alzheimer’s, research suggests.

Rambling speech could provide the first indication of mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition marked by forgetfulness that pre-dates dementia, it is claimed.

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 – stove, water and pot.

Lead researcher Dr Janet Cohen Sherman, from Massachusetts General Hospital, said: “The MCIs are very long-winded. One significant difference is the mean length of utterance, how many words MCI subjects used versus healthy older – it was a very significant difference.”

Dr Sherman stressed that it was the way a person’s speech patterns changed over time that was crucial.