Identifying life course mechanisms and pathways that influence cognitive health among Asian and Latina/o/x older adults

• Published in: International psychogeriatrics Vol. 35; no. 1; pp. 3 - 6
• Main Authors: Brown, Lauren L., García, Catherine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.01.2023
• Subjects: Acculturation; Adults; Aged; Aging; Alzheimer's disease; Asian; Birth place; Clinical research; Cognition; Cognition & reasoning; Cognitive ability; Cognitive impairment; Commentary; Continuing education; Dementia; Education; Episodic memory; Ethnic groups; Executive function; Generations; Geriatric psychiatry; Health care; Health disparities; Health education; Hispanic or Latino - psychology; Humans; Immigrants; Immigration; Influence; Integrated care; Intervention; Latin American cultural groups; Learning; Life Change Events; Life course; Medical research; Memory; Migration; Minority & ethnic groups; Minority groups; Older people; Population; Primary care; Psychological mechanisms; Public health; Race; Racial stratification; Recruitment; Semantics; Stratification; United States > US
• DOI: 10.1017/S1041610222000801
• ISSN: 1041-6102

[...]the rapid increases in the diverse aging population suggest that there is an urgent need to understand the risks that immigration, nativity status, and racial stratification impose that influence late-life cognition, including the physiological and psychological mechanisms that play a critical role in health across the lifespan and generations. Mohammad et al.’s (2020) study demonstrates that respondents with “distributed education” exhibited higher scores in episodic memory and name recognition measures, suggesting that a respondent’s prolonged exposure to being involved in the learning process across the lifespan results in improved cognitive reserve. [...]continuing education among foreign-born older adults in the USA may be an effective public health policy intervention to delay or slow cognitive decline, in addition to intervention strategies tailored based on education level and are culturally appropriate as highlighted recently by other researchers in International Psychogeriatrics (Radanovic, 2020; Yuan et al., 2018). The findings from using the KHANDLE can provide vital information for research and clinical applications of cognitive tests, identifying individuals at higher risk for cognitive impairment and improving the health and well-being of individuals using culturally relevant and appropriate measures. Notably, the KHANDLE included participants with long-term access to integrated health care (i.e. usual care), which is not the norm for the general population, especially racial and ethnic minorities across the USA. [...]many populations disproportionately rely on acute illness care to meet basic and primary care needs, suggesting a missed opportunity for ADRD research recruitment efforts (Gilmore-Bykovskyi et al., 2019).