Elderly persons have brain functions that
deteriorate with age. A rapid degeneration of the brain cells could cause mild
cognitive impairment (MCI) that may develop into dementia. The most common form
of dementia is Alzheimer's disease (AD). "Spoken language" of the
elderly with MCI and those with AD tends to reveal some degrees of decreased brain
function. This work is an extension of the work carried out by Tantibundhit et
al. (2017; 2016), by examining five
types of temporal parameters: silent duration, pause rate, speaking rate,
articulation rate, and hesitation ratio. Participants were
10 cognitively normal elderly (NC), 11
elderly with MCI, and 10 mild AD patients. The aim of the
research is to investigate which types of temporal parameter could classify the
three groups of participants. The results showed that the mean of the temporal
parameters was likely to show unequal levels of brain activity, memory and
cognitive decline in the participants based on fluency of speaking, although
the results of the statistical analysis have not yet reached a significant
level.