Cognitive Health and Functional Abilities of Illiterate Older Peruvians

Abstract

AbstractBackgroundThe demographic changes are clearly affecting developing countries like Peru. Is estimated that approximately 7% of the population in the capital city of Lima, Peru, lives with dementia but there is no knowledge of the cognitive health of illiterate older in urban and rural communities outside Lima, where 41.5% of older adults living in these communities are illiterate. On the other hand, Peru is home to tremendous social and geocultural diversity, which may mitigate the worrisome dementia risk. In this respect, it is interesting to note that many older Peruvians remain active preserved and prolonged functional independence in their respective communities for long periods of time. Additionally, in Peru, several brief cognitive tests have been validated in urban cohorts (mostly within Lima) with elementary level education, but, to our knowledge, no brief tests of cognition or functionality have been validated in illiterate Peruvians. These observations raise important research questions that the present pilot proposal seeks to begin investigating.MethodsWe are characterizing the cognitive health and functional abilities of rural and urban illiterate older adults living in two geoculturally‐distinct regions of Peru, the Andean and Amazonian regions. Within the Andes region, we are studying a cohort of illiterate older adults living in the urban area of Cuzco and another cohort from the rural area of Pomacanchis ‐ Cuzco; within the Amazon region, we will study a cohort of illiterate older adults living in the urban area of Iquitos and another cohort from the rural area of San Reyes. We are conducting a gold standard neurological, neuropsychological, and functional evaluations in all enrolled participants in each of the four cohorts and these will be used to arrive at a multidisciplinary consensus diagnosis of suspected normal aging, subjective cognitive impairment, mild neurocognitive disorder (or mild cognitive impairment), or major neurocognitive disorder (or dementia). We are correlating these diagnoses with results of brief cognitive tests and a brief functionality assessment, the MMSE, RUDAS, the BHA ‐ TabCAT, and the adapted version of PFAQ.Results In collection process ConclusionThis pilot project represents the initial steps towards addressing these hypotheses and will generate unique data.