It\u2019s completely normal to add \u201cums\u201d and \u201cuhs\u201d to your speech when you talk. While practically everyone does this, new research suggests that some speech patterns that include these so-called filler words could be associated with cognitive decline, an early sign of dementia. Experts say this latest data might provide a useful framework for clinicians to study dementia in the future.<\/p>\n
Keep in mind that doesn\u2019t mean that you\u2019re destined to develop dementia if you throw a lot of \u201clikes\u201d or pauses into your speech. But this study does add some interesting context to the existing information we have around dementia and how we communicate.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s what researchers found, plus what brain experts want you to take away from the news.<\/p>\n
Meet the experts: Daniel H. Daneshvar, MD, PhD<\/a>, brain injury specialist at Mass General Brigham and chief of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School and Davide Cappon, PhD<\/a>, neuropsychologist at Tufts Medical Center.<\/p>\n What did the study find?<\/p>\n The research, published in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research<\/a>, was divided into two study groups. The first recruited 67 healthy older adults between the ages of 65 and 75, while the second recruited 174 healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 90.<\/p>\n For both groups, participants were shown detailed images and asked to describe what they saw. Participants were also asked to do tests to measure their executive function, which is the group of mental abilities involved in memory, planning, attention, and flexible thinking.<\/p>\n From there, the researchers used AI to analyze the participants’ speech recordings. This analysis detected hundreds of subtle elements about the participants\u2019 speech, including how long they paused while speaking, use of filler words, and the timing of their speech patterns.<\/p>\n Researchers found that \u201cspeech disfluencies,\u201d or interruptions in the flow of speech, helped predict how well participants performed on cognitive tests.<\/p>\n \u201cThe findings revealed associations between word-finding ability in natural speech and general executive function across the adult lifespan, supporting natural speech analysis as a convenient and sensitive assessment of general cognitive ability,\u201d the researchers wrote in their paper.<\/p>\n What\u2019s the link between this study and diagnosing dementia?<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to keep in mind that the study found a link between speech habits and problems with thinking (including dementia), it didn\u2019t find that using filler words means you have dementia. It\u2019s more of an association rather than a diagnosis.<\/p>\n \u201cFiller words are extremely common in everyday speech. Nearly everyone uses them,\u201d says Daniel H. Daneshvar, MD, PhD<\/a>, a brain injury specialist at Mass General Brigham and chief of the Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Harvard Medical School. \u201cIn normal conversation, they can serve a useful purpose by giving the speaker a moment to organize a thought or retrieve a word. On their own, these filler words are not concerning and do not indicate that someone has dementia.\u201d<\/p>\n