A COMPARATIVE-ANALYSIS OF NEUROPSYCHOLOGICAL TEST-PERFORMANCE OF SPANISH-SPEAKING AND ENGLISH-SPEAKING PATIENTS WITH ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE

Because the diagnosis of dementia is highly dependent on the identific ation of neuropsychological deficits, there have been increasing conce rns regarding cultural bias in tests designed to measure cognitive and intellectual function in English-speaking and Spanish-speaking adults . Despite their widespread clinical use, the effects of potential cult ural bias on these measures among these two groups are largely unknown . We assembled a group of 76 females who received an NINCDS-ADRDA clin ical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Half of these subjects wer e primary Spanish speakers, and the other half reported English as the ir primary language. All subjects were matched on chronological age an d severity of memory impairment. Factors such as educational attainmen t and depression were entered into the analyses as covariates. The two groups were compared with respect to their performance on a battery o f neuropsychological tests that are representative of what is typicall y used to diagnose the presence and severity of dementia. The finding that Spanish-speaking AD patients scored lower on specific neuropsycho logical measures is discussed in terms of inherent language biases and the possible lack of saliency of a number of these tests. The results obtained further suggest the need to modify certain neuropsychologica l indices so that they will better serve diverse ethnic and cultural g roups.