Digital Voice Analysis as a Measure of Frailty and Distress

Speech test with synchronized audio and video recording. The speaking exercises and the audio and video recording will be done using a tablet computer and an application developed in-house. Freely available images showing different scenes will be integrated and displayed on the tablet to be described by the patient. The goal is to have at least two and maximum four of them described with several sentences by each patient per session. Parameters will be extracted from the patient's audio data to estimate the changes in distress and frailty.

The G8 screening tool consists of seven items dealing with food intake, weight loss, mobility, neuropsychological problem, body mass index, prescription drug, and self-perception of health, from the Mini-Nutritional Assessment (MNA) questionnaire and was developed specifically for elderly cancer patients. The total G-8 score lies between 0 and 17. A higher score indicates a better health status.

The distress thermometer (DT) is a measure of psychological distress in cancer patients. The instrument is a self-reported tool using a 0-to-10 rating scale.