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Research

Novel Study Finds Common Test for Memory Works Well in Native American Populations

How well cognition is measured in clinic or research settings can depend on many factors, including age, sex and education; but also culture, language, depression and other environmental and life factors that are different across populations. Few cognitive tests have been assessed for how well they assess cognition in Native American populations, whose experience of health, community and environmental conditions can be radically different from that of the general population.

Researchers at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine found that a common test for memory, the California Verbal Learning Test Second Edition (CVLT-II), performs well in Native American older adults. However, they also discovered that age, sex and education, but not bilingual status, need to be taken into account when interpreting these scores to determine whether a patient or participant has memory impairment.

“Our findings suggest that scores from such tests in clinical patients or research participants would be interpretable to clinicians or investigators as representing memory, just as it does for other populations such as non-Hispanic whites,” explains corresponding author Astrid M. Suchy-Dicey, PhD, associate professor at BU’s Slone Epidemiology Center. “These findings are important because testing for changes in memory is one of the first steps to assessment of cognitive impairment in older adults, and is a key symptom of vascular and Alzheimer’s dementias.”

The researchers collected cognitive testing as well as other self-reported and measured data from a large cohort of Native American adults age 65-95 years from field centers in Oklahoma, Arizona, and the Dakotas. They then conducted psychometric analysis to assess the validity of these cognitive tests. 

According to the researchers, this population is severely underrepresented in dementia and neurology research, in part due to the difficulties associated with community based participatory research and community-facing cognitive data collection. “Our study is at the forefront of disparities work in a historically underrepresented group with important sociocultural and health differences, providing novel insights and fuller understanding of health and aging of all American peoples.”

These findings appear online in the journal Neuropsychology.