Neuropsychological assessment in rare neurodevelopmental disorders has provided clinicians and researchers with a more comprehensive view of natural history as well as opportunities for additional endpoints in treatment trials. While challenges to protocol development have been addressed in the literature, cultural considerations have been overly broad resulting in limited utility when including mixed international samples. Using experiences over the past five years with the development of ten different protocols for neurogenetic rare diseases, this paper presents further considerations for protocol development that are culturally sensitive to international samples.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Alzheimer's Association hosted the second Latinos & Alzheimer's Symposium in May 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the meeting was held online over 2 days, with virtual presentations, discussions, mentoring sessions, and posters. The Latino population in the United States is projected to have the steepest increase in Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the next 40 years, compared to other ethnic groups.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Environ Res Public Health
October 2021
Systemic racism leads to racial/ethnic residential segregation, which can result in health inequities. We examined if the associations between residential segregation and later-life cognition and dementia differed based on segregation measure and by participant race/ethnicity. Tests of memory ( = 4616), language ( = 4333), visuospatial abilities ( = 4557), and incident dementia ( = 4556) were analyzed in older residents of Northern Manhattan, New York (mean age: 75.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Composite scores based on psychometrically rigorous cognitive assessments are well suited for early diagnosis and disease monitoring.
Methods: We developed and cross-validated the Brain Health Assessment-Cognitive Score (BHA-CS), based on a brief computerized battery, in 451 cognitively normal (CN) and 399 cognitively impaired (mild cognitive impairment [MCI] or dementia) older adults. We investigated its long-term reliability and reliable change indices at longitudinal follow-up (N = 340), and the association with amyloid beta (Aβ) burden in the CN subgroup with Aβ positron emission tomography (N = 119).
: Physical activity closely relates to cognition and brain structure as we age. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this relationship in humans remain less clear. Functional connectivity (FC), measured by task-free functional MRI (tf-fMRI) is a dynamic marker of network activity and may be a sensitive indicator of the brain's response to exercise over time.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Our objective was to (1) evaluate the linguistic and cultural acceptability of a Spanish translation of the Ohio State University traumatic brain injury identification method (OSU TBI-ID) and (2) to assess the usability and acceptability of a tablet-based version of this instrument in a cohort of Spanish-dominant older adults.
Setting: University clinical research center and local community center.
Participants: Community-dwelling Spanish-dominant adults age 50 years or older without dementia residing in the Bay Area of California (N=22).