Detection of Alzheimer's Dementia by Using Signal Decomposition and Machine Learning Methods

Dementia is one of the most common neurological disorders causing defection of cognitive functions, and seriously affects the quality of life. In this study, various methods have been proposed for the detection and follow-up of Alzheimer's dementia (AD) with advanced signal processing methods by using electroencephalography (EEG) signals. Signal decomposition-based approaches such as empirical mode decomposition (EMD), ensemble EMD (EEMD), and discrete wavelet transform (DWT) are presented to classify EEG segments of control subjects (CSs) and AD patients. Intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) are obtained from the signals using the EMD and EEMD methods, and the IMFs showing the most significant differences between the two groups are selected by applying previously suggested selection procedures. Five-time-domain and 5-spectral-domain features are calculated using selected IMFs, and five detail and approximation coefficients of DWT. Signal decomposition processes are conducted for both 1 min and 5 s EEG segment durations. For the 1 min segment duration, all the proposed approaches yield prominent classification performances. While the highest classification accuracies are obtained using EMD (91.8%) and EEMD (94.1%) approaches from the temporal/right brain cluster, the highest classification accuracy for the DWT (95.2%) approach is obtained from the temporal/left brain cluster for 1 min segment duration.

Automated summary

This study proposes advanced signal processing methods for the detection and follow-up of Alzheimer's dementia (AD) using EEG signals. Various signal decomposition-based approaches and selection procedures are used to classify EEG segments and calculate features. The experimental results show that the proposed methods achieve good classification performances.