Study on indicators for depression in the elderly using voice and attribute information

Abstract

As the age of the human population increases worldwide, depression in elderly patients has become a problem in medical care. In this study, we analyzed voice-emotion component data, attribute data, and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) scores by multivariate analysis, particularly in the elderly, and proposed evaluation indicators for estimating the state of depression of elderly patients. We divided the data into two groups according to BDI scores: a state of depression and the absence of this state. The labels distinguishing the two groups were dependent variables, while the voice-emotion component and attribute information were set as independent variables, and we performed logistic regression analysis on the data. We obtained a prediction model with significantly sufficient fitness. In the receiver operating characteristic curve for the proposed depression evaluation indicator, a sorting performance with an area under the curve of approximately 0.93 was obtained.