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

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
• neuropsychology
• neurodegenerative disease

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Latine(s) is a gender-neutral term referring to individuals of Latin American descent. It is an alternative to Latinx, as it can be pronounced in Spanish.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the National Institute of Health [NIH K08AG22228; R01AG062007, U01AG051218], PI: John M. Ringman; [P30AG066530], MPIs: Chui/Toga/Zlokovic, and [NIH U10-EY011753]; PI: Rohit Varma; [NIH F31AG077889]; PI: Kayla Tureson.