While the percentage of Spanish-speaking persons over age 60 who reside in this country is steadily increasing, few efforts have been made to address the specific health care needs of this group. Most persons in this demographic group either cannot speak English or feel more comfortable with Spanish in a clinical setting. Since few testing materials have been translated and validated into Spainsh, it is nearly impossible at the present time to assess symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease or other dementias.
The aim of the proposed research is to translate into Spanish a neuropsychological testing battery currently used by the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Consortium of Southern California, which is part of the Andrus Gerontology Center, University of Southern California. This battery would then be tested for validity using two groups of Spanish-speaking subjects over 65--patients meeting NINCOS-ADRDA criteria for """"""""probable"""""""" Alzheimer's Disease and a normal comparison group. The resulting separation in scores between the two groups would then be compared to the separation between similar groups of previously diagnosed English-speaking patients and normal controls. Simple descriptic statistics, correlations, comparisons of group means, and discriminant analysis will be conducted. The results of this study will lead to identification of useful cognitive tests of the Hispanic elderly for use in Alzheimer's Disease research and with potential clinical applications.
