Retrospective meta-analytics of the lexicon via email processing
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Retrospective meta-analytics of the lexicon via email processing
IRAS ID
190230
Contact name
Adam Hampshire
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Imperial College London
Duration of Study in the UK
5 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
Dementia causes degeneration in the brain years in advance of a clinical diagnosis. From a treatment perspective, those identified earliest during the prodromal stage (i.e. prior to the development of clinical symptoms) will stand to gain the most from clinical intervention. Research has previously indicated that verbal diversity, or the number of words in an individuals lexicon, is a reliable measure that is predictive of the subsequent development of dementia.
The proposed study aims to retrospectively measure verbal fluency in dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCRI) patients to gain insight into cognitive decline in the years running up to clinical diagnosis. This will be achieved by performing lexical analyses on emails previously composed by dementia patients.
Developing reliable behavioural markers in this manner has a huge potential to benefit. It can help us understand how the lexicon is affected prior to clinical symptom onset, based entirely on data that already exists. In doing so, it can generate markers to identify those individuals who are most likely to develop dementia.
Those volunteering in the proposed study would be involved in the following manner. Volunteers visiting the clinical research facility (South London & Maudsley (SLAM) enter their email account information onto the secure computer on-site. The data would then be automatically processed, with only unlinked meta measures of the lexicon being stored. In addition to this, volunteers would have memory and cognitive assessments using gold standard neuropsychological paradigms.
Working closely with our clinical collaborators, we propose to collect data from a range of individuals including young and elderly controls, dementia patients and the spouses of patients.
REC name
London - Fulham Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/LO/1662
Date of REC Opinion
4 Oct 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion