title: Which neuropsychological tests predict progression to Alzheimer's disease in Hispanics?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To investigate which neuropsychological tests predict eventual progression to Alzheimer's disease (AD) in both Hispanic and non-Hispanic individuals. Although our approach was exploratory, we predicted that tests that underestimate cognitive ability in healthy aging Hispanics might not be sensitive to future cognitive decline in this cultural group.
  
  
  METHODS
  We compared first-year data of 22 older adults (11 Hispanic) who were diagnosed as cognitively normal but eventually developed AD (decliners), to 60 age- and education-matched controls (27 Hispanic) who remained cognitively normal. To identify tests that may be culturally biased in our sample, we compared Hispanic with non-Hispanic controls on all tests and asked which tests were sensitive to future decline in each cultural group.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Compared to age-, education-, and gender-matched non-Hispanic controls, Hispanic controls obtained lower scores on tests of language, executive function, and some measures of global cognition. Consistent with our predictions, some tests identified non-Hispanic, but not Hispanic, decliners (vocabulary, semantic fluency). Contrary to our predictions, a number of tests on which Hispanics obtained lower scores than non-Hispanics nevertheless predicted eventual progression to AD in both cultural groups (e.g., Boston Naming Test [BNT], Trails A and B).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Cross-cultural variation in test sensitivity to decline may reflect greater resistance of medium difficulty items to decline and bilingual advantages that initially protect Hispanics against some aspects of cognitive decline commonly observed in non-Hispanics with preclinical AD. These findings highlight a need for further consideration of cross-cultural differences in neuropsychological test performance and development of culturally unbiased measures.
authors.affiliation: San Diego State University.
authors.forename: Gali H
authors.initials: GH
authors.lastname: Weissberger
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurosciences, University of California, San Diego.
authors.forename: David P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Salmon
authors.affiliation: VA San Diego Healthcare System.
authors.forename: Mark W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Bondi
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego.
authors.forename: Tamar H
authors.initials: TH
authors.lastname: Gollan
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology; D060825:Cognitive Dysfunction / Q000208:ethnology / Q000523:psychology*; D018450:Disease Progression; D056344:Executive Function; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests