Philip Sayegh
Neuropsychological Language Tests in Dementia Diagnosis in English-Speaking Hispanic and Non-Hispanic White Outpatients
University of California, Los Angeles
neuropsychological language tests limitations eg unrepresentative norms applied hispanics clinicians likely aware tests may lead inaccurate dementia diagnoses therefore hypothesized language tests would weaker diagnostic predictors hispanics versus nonhispanic whites participants included 436 englishspeaking hispanic 436 nonhispanic white randomly selected 10937 outpatients classified dementia normal cognition initial evaluation covarying age sex education functional abilities vegetable fluency significantly predicted diagnosis among nonhispanic whites odds ratio 080 95 confidence interval 069 094 p 01 animal fluency abbreviated 30item boston naming test bnt comparably predicted diagnosis across groups results remained similar covarying primary language among hispanics findings suggest vegetable fluency animal fluency relatively unimportant diagnosis englishspeaking hispanics study possibly cultural influences familiarity salience relevance categorys items additionally clinicians may informally adjusted hispanics 30item bnt animal fluency scores discounted vegetable fluency account limitations animal fluency bnt may preferable language tests assessing dementia english across groups comparably predicted diagnosis groups