A – 15 The Potential for Misdiagnosis in Hispanic/Latino Older Adults

Objective Latinos represent the largest and fastest growing ethnic minority group in the United States and show increased risk of mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. However, demographically adjusted normative data that represents this group is lacking and likely contributes to misdiagnosis. The purpose of this study was to explore differences in standard scores when using normative data derived from non-Hispanic vs. Hispanic samples. Method Participants included 11 Hispanic/Latino older adults recruited from a primary care clinic (Age: X-= 69.91, SD= 1.71; Education: X-= 16.09, SD= 1.31; Males= 5). Raw scores on six cognitive measures, Hopkins Verbal Learning Test Revised (HVLT-R) Immediate Recall, HVLT-R Delayed Recall, Letter Fluency, Animal Naming, and Trail Making Test Parts A and B, were converted to T-Scores using non-Hispanic and Hispanic normative data and compared using paired samples t-tests. Results There were significant differences between T-scores on all six tasks, with higher T scores obtained when using Hispanic norms: HVLT-R Immediate Recall (p <.001), HVLT-R Delayed Recall (p <.001), Letter Fluency (p <.001), Animal Naming (p <.001), Trail Making Test Part A (p <.012), and Part B (p <.01). Conclusion Findings confirm that the use of demographically adjusted norms is crucial in standard neuropsychological evaluations. Failure to account for cultural differences in Hispanic/Latino older adults specifically can over pathologize findings, leading to misdiagnosis, especially when interpreting language-based tasks.