Assessment of Dementia in the Hispanic Client: A Neuropsychological Perspective

Abstract

A review of extant literature has indicated that there are different approaches to assessing dementia. With regard to the Hispanic client, we followed APA's recommendations for assessment and discussed the various domains that should be assessed when dementia is suspected as part of a comprehensive assessment battery. While the number of assessments available to Hispanics is comparably smaller to that of their English counterparts, quality measures with good normative data and sound psychometric properties exist. When using these measures, one should keep in mind the consistent findings of influence of demographic variables such as age, education, and language abilities. Again, the authors encourage the translation and or development of new measures for areas where there is a need. The overarching goal is to step away from the all to common practice of identifying problem areas or deficits in assessment domains without offering solutions. In addition to this review, we also reviewed and discussed at length assessment batteries and individual tests specific to dementia and the Hispanic client. This review has revealed that as is the case for Other ethnic groups, demographic information about the client even in the absence of ethnic minority status must be taken into account when results are being interpreted. Namely, socio demographic factors such as age, gender, and education can impact test performance. Furthermore, English and Spanish-language proficiency can also carry an impact on test performance. Thus, while clinicians and researchers alike are encouraged to keep the above factors in mind when interpreting results, our review of the literature has produced several assessment options that are likely to lead to a reliable diagnosis, particularly those that have adjustments to sociocultural factors, and for those assessment measures where an 'interpret results with caution' clause was warranted, we recommend collateral contacts and results from additional assessment measures be used as a means for either confirming or disconfirming a test result. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)