Speaking of heart disease

Researchers at the Mayo Clinic report success in using sounds in people’s voices to determine whether they have heart disease. The team already has identified vocal markers for autism and Parkinson’s disease.

The sound characteristics are spotted by a software program developed by the Israeli company Beyond Verbal. Speech patterns are analyzed by computer algorithms that have shown that when certain sound patterns are present, the speaker is more than twice as likely to have heart disease than when the patterns are absent.

TRENDPOST: Because the sound patterns can be detected over the phone, initial screenings for cardiac disease will be able to be done remotely. The increasing presence of smart personal assistants and artificial intelligence will dramatically reduce the number of routine visits to the doctor after 2020.