Family history of dementia associated with lower phonemic fluency on the Spanish version of the CERAD

Family history of dementia associated with lower phonemic fluency on the Spanish version of the CERAD

/ Vol 6-Nº 1 ene-jun 2023 /

Hjalmar Zambrana-Bonaparte, PsyD* y Youssef Ahmad-Pereira, PhD

Abstrac

Objective: Dementia prevalence in Latin America is becoming a significant public health problem, especially in the Caribbean. Family history of dementia (FHD) is a risk factor for dementia and appears to be associated with poorer neuropsychological test performance among non-demented individuals. The purpose of this preliminary study was to examine the relationship between FHD and test performance among cognitively healthy Puerto Ricans.
Method: Fifty Spanish-speakers (age 55-74 years) were administered an on-line version of the CERAD battery and were divided among two groups based on self-reported FHD. A Principal Component Analysis generated five factors: non-contextual memory, phonemic fluency, contextual memory, semantic and recognition memory, and working memory, accounting for 73.82% of the overall variance in the 16 original variables.
Results: Multivariate analysis of covariance showed a main effect of FHD on the combined dependent variables after controlling for covariates age and education with large effect size (ηp2 =.233). Subsequent analyses of covariance only revealed a main effect of FHD on phonemic fluency after controlling for covariates with moderate effect size (ηp2=.124). Except for contextual memory, the dementia history group (+DH) generally performed lower than the non-dementia history group (-DH).
Conclusions: Data suggest that FHD can be negatively associated with neuropsychological test performance among cognitively healthy Puerto Ricans. FHD as a covariate in normal cognitive aging studies should be considered, even among the young-old adult range. Further exploration of the relationship between +DH and test performance, specifically phonemic fluency among Puerto Ricans, is warranted.

* Albizu University, Mayagüez
University Center, Mayagüez,
Puerto Rico
Carr. 64 Esquina Calle #3, Urb.
Industrial Algarrobos,
Mayagüez, P.R. 00680
(787) 481-0511
hzambrana474@sju.albizu.edu