Assessing the Clinical and Functional Status of COPD Patients Using Speech Analysis During and After Exacerbation

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) affects breathing, speech production, and coughing. We evaluated a machine learning analysis of speech for classifying the disease severity of COPD.

In this single centre study, non-consecutive COPD patients were prospectively recruited for comparing their speech characteristics during and after an acute COPD exacerbation. We extracted a set of spectral, prosodic, and temporal variability features, which were used as input to a support vector machine (SVM). Our baseline for predicting patient state was an SVM model using self-reported BORG and COPD Assessment Test (CAT) scores.

In 50 COPD patients (52% males, 22% GOLD II, 44% GOLD III, 32% GOLD IV, all patients group E), speech analysis was superior in distinguishing during and after exacerbation status compared to BORG and CAT scores alone by achieving 84% accuracy in prediction. CAT scores correlated with reading rhythm, and BORG scales with stability in articulation. Pulmonary function testing (PFT) correlated with speech pause rate and speech rhythm variability.

Speech analysis may be a viable technology for classifying COPD status, opening up new opportunities for remote disease monitoring.