Use of the Spanish English Neuropsychological Assessment Scale in older adult Latines and those at risk for autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease

Kayla N Tureson; Christopher R Beam; Luis D Medina; Freddi Segal-Gidan; Lina M D'Orazio; Helena Chui; Mina Torres; Rohit Varma; John M Ringman

doi:10.1080/13803395.2023.2284971

Use of the Spanish English Neuropsychological Assessment Scale in older adult Latines and those at risk for autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease

J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2023 Aug;45(6):553-569. doi: 10.1080/13803395.2023.2284971. Epub 2023 Dec 29.

Authors

Kayla N Tureson^{1

2}, Christopher R Beam^{2

3}, Luis D Medina⁴, Freddi Segal-Gidan¹, Lina M D'Orazio¹, Helena Chui¹, Mina Torres⁵, Rohit Varma⁵, John M Ringman¹

Affiliations

¹ Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
² Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
³ USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
⁴ Department of Psychology, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA.
⁵ CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center, Southern California Eye Institute, Los Angeles, CA, USA.

PMID: 37990912
PMCID: PMC10926998 (available on 2024-12-29)
DOI: 10.1080/13803395.2023.2284971

Abstract

Objective: The Spanish English Neuropsychological Assessment Scale (SENAS) is a cognitive battery with English and Spanish versions for use with persons for whom either language is predominant. Few studies have examined its utility outside the normative sample. The current study examined SENAS performance in samples of older adult Latines and Latines with or at risk for autosomal dominant Alzheimer's disease (ADAD) mutations.

Method: The SENAS was administered to 202 older adults from the Los Angeles Latino Eye Study (LALES) and 29 adults with (carriers) or without (non-carriers) mutations causing ADAD. We examined associations between SENAS, age, education, and language (LALES) and between SENAS, estimated years from familial age of dementia diagnosis, education, language, and acculturation (ADAD). Partial correlations were used to examine differences in correlational strength between estimated years from familial age of dementia diagnosis and SENAS scores among ADAD carriers compared to chronological age and SENAS in the LALES sample. Exploratory t-tests were performed to examine SENAS performance differences between ADAD carriers and non-carriers.

Results: In an older adult sample (LALES), increased age correlated with worse verbal delayed recall; English fluency and higher education correlated with better naming and visuospatial subtest performance. Among ADAD carriers, verbal and nonverbal delayed recall and object naming subtest performance worsened as they approached their familial age of dementia diagnosis. English fluency and higher U.S.-acculturation were related to better SENAS performance among carriers and non-carriers. Tests of verbal delayed recall and object naming best distinguished ADAD carriers from their familial non-carrier counterparts.

Conclusions: Verbal delayed recall and object naming measures appear to be most sensitive to age-related changes in older adult samples and mutation-related changes in distinguishing ADAD carriers from non-carriers. Future research should examine the sensitivity of SENAS in other samples, such as larger samples of symptomatic ADAD carriers and other AD subtypes.

Keywords: Latino; cognition; dementia; neurodegenerative disease; neuropsychology.

MeSH terms

Aged
Alzheimer Disease* / diagnosis
Alzheimer Disease* / genetics
Hispanic or Latino / psychology
Humans
Language
Mutation
Neuropsychological Tests

Abstract

MeSH terms

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