Pain

Speech is sensitive to pain-related changes in cognition, mood, and physical strain, offering a real-time window into patient function. Redenlab enables passive and active speech-based monitoring to complement traditional pain metrics and enhance outcome measurement in clinical trials.

Pain, speech and cognition

Chronic pain affects over 20% of the global population and is a leading cause of disability, yet remains difficult to quantify beyond patient-reported outcomes. Pain influences not only physical function but also speech and communication—through altered prosody, slowed rate, vocal tension, and disrupted emotional expression. These changes reflect the cognitive load, fatigue, and emotional distress associated with persistent pain and can affect interpersonal interactions and treatment adherence. Redenlab’s digital speech assessments capture these subtle, real-time changes, providing objective, low-burden endpoints for pain research, intervention trials, and digital therapeutics.

Speech analytics for pain trials and monitoring

Captures cognitive and affective load

Speech timing and prosody reflect mental effort, emotional state, and executive dysfunction associated with chronic pain.

Non-invasive, real-time endpoints

Enables continuous or episodic monitoring of patient function without burdening participants.

Applicable to opioid and non-opioid trials

Assesses functional change across pharmacological, behavioural, or device-based pain interventions.

Validated in psychiatric and neurological comorbidities

Speech analytics can distinguish pain-related changes from overlapping conditions like depression or sleep disturbance.

Supports decentralised and digital trial designs

Scalable for remote deployment via smartphones or telehealth platforms.

Redenlab’s Experience in Pain Research

Redenlab is pioneering the use of speech analytics as a novel functional biomarker in pain assessment. In the 2025 PAIN Reports article by Parreira et al., Redenlab’s methodology was used to examine how speech production changes in the presence of musculoskeletal pain, revealing measurable alterations in speech rate, articulation, prosody, and vocal control. These features reflected the cognitive load and emotional strain associated with pain, supporting their potential as non-invasive, real-time indicators of patient experience.

The study positioned speech not merely as a symptom but as a window into the neurocognitive and affective sequelae of chronic pain, with implications for both clinical trials and day-to-day monitoring. Redenlab’s tools, which enable passive and active data capture across remote and in-clinic settings, were shown to be sensitive to subtle, real-world functional impairments not captured by traditional pain scales.

Building on this work, Redenlab is supporting industry and academic partners in integrating speech-based endpoints into pain intervention trials, digital health platforms, and longitudinal cohort studies,bringing greater objectivity and ecological validity to how pain is measured and managed.