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

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