The Role of Caregiver Prosody in Conversations With Persons Who Have Alzheimer’s Disease

Abstract

This research was supported in part by funding from the British Columbia Medical Services Foundation (BCM02-0115). The funding source had no role in the design, methods, participant recruitment, data collection, interpretation of the study, or in the preparation of the manuscript for publication. Approval for the study was granted by the University of British Columbia Behavioural Ethics Review Board, and participants provided informed consent. This study investigated whether aspects of family caregivers’ prosody (pitch and loudness) would be associated with successful or unsuccessful conversations with spouses who have Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Secondary analysis was conducted of 12 caregivers’ speech when interacting with spouses who have AD. Acoustic analyses were conducted to calculate the fundamental frequency (pitch) and intensity (loudness) of caregivers’ speech. The results showed no significant overall differences between the caregivers’ pitch or loudness in either successful or unsuccessful conversations. However, for 1 subgroup of caregivers, an increase in pitch variation and loudness was associated with unsuccessful communication, whereas for another subgroup the opposite pattern was observed—reduced pitch variation and loudness with unsuccessful communication. The results provide preliminary directions for helping family caregivers become aware of how characteristics of their speech prosody may relate to the quality of communication when interacting with persons who have AD.