The Latin American Spanish PACC5 (LAS‐PACC5): Advancing Cognitive Assessment in Latinos

INTRODUCTION To address the need for validated Spanish‐language cognitive assessments in Latino populations at risk for Alzheimer's disease (AD), we evaluated the psychometric performance of a Latin American Spanish adaptation of the Preclinical Alzheimer's Cognitive Composite‐5 (LAS‐PACC5). METHODS A total of 121 Spanish‐speaking older adults from the Boston Latino Aging Study (BLAST; Mean age = 64.98 ± 6.98 years; 69% female) were included. The LAS‐PACC5 replaced literacy‐dependent tasks with culturally and linguistically appropriate measures. Convergent validity was examined using measures validated in diverse Spanish‐speaking populations. RESULTS LAS‐PACC5 showed moderate associations with naming ability, episodic memory, and global cognition (all p ’s < 0.001) and differentiated cognitively unimpaired ( n = 98) from impaired participants ( n = 23; p = 0.005). Results were consistent across alternative cognitive classification approaches. DISCUSSION The LAS‐PACC5 demonstrated convergent and discriminative validity, supporting its utility for early cognitive assessment in Spanish‐speaking older adults and for improving Latino representation in AD Research.