Aging results in significant increases in the incidence of medical and neurobehavioral pathology. This trend is especially ominous for African- American men, for whom the rate of accompanying neuropathologic disturbance is most pronounced. Although the family is typically the first to observe significant alterations in mental status, family members have not been systematically and effectively used to establish the baseline, course, and/or pathologic consequence of neurocognitive changes. In the three-year between- and within-subject repeated-measures design we propose here, we will train a designated family member and/or caregiver to obtain selected neurocognitive and psychosocial measures on 140 elderly African-American men and women between the ages of 65 and 90. The proposed study has the following specific aims: l. To use family members to help identify and define possible age variance on cognitive and psychosocial functioning among African-American elderly. 2. To use family members to identify and define the possible gender differences of cognitive and psychosocial functioning among African- American elderly. 3. To develop preliminary data on the use of African- American family members as resources to obtain selected neuropsychological and psychosocial measures of neurobehavioral functioning among the elderly.
| Cunningham, W E; Burton, T M; Hawes-Dawson, J et al. (1999) Use of relevancy ratings by target respondents to develop health-related quality of life measures: an example with African-American elderly. Qual Life Res 8:749-68 |
| Kington, R; Lillard, L; Rogowski, J (1997) Reproductive history, socioeconomic status, and self-reported health status of women aged 50 years or older. Am J Public Health 87:33-7 |
| Kington, R S; Smith, J P (1997) Socioeconomic status and racial and ethnic differences in functional status associated with chronic diseases. Am J Public Health 87:805-10 |
