Everyday Problem Solving in African Americans and European Americans With Alzheimer's Disease: An Exploratory Study

• Published in: International psychogeriatrics Vol. 14; no. 1; pp. 83 - 95
• Main Authors: Ripich, Danielle N., Fritsch, Thomas, Ziol, Elaine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge, UK Cambridge University Press 01.03.2002; Elsevier Inc
• Subjects: Activities of Daily Living; Aged; Alzheimer Disease - classification; Alzheimer Disease - diagnosis; Alzheimer Disease - ethnology; Alzheimer Disease - psychology; Alzheimer's disease; Analysis of Variance; Assessment; Biological and medical sciences; Black; Black or African American - psychology; Degenerative and inherited degenerative diseases of the nervous system. Leukodystrophies. Prion diseases; dementia; Educational Status; ethnicity; Female; Geriatric Assessment; Geriatrics; Humans; language; Linguistics; Male; Medical sciences; Mental Status Schedule; Neurology; Neuropsychological Tests; nonbiased testing; Ohio; Problem Solving; Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry; Psychopathology. Psychiatry; reasoning; Severity of Illness Index; White People - psychology; Ohio; nonbiased testing; ethnicity; Assessment; reasoning; dementia; language; Black; Human; Nervous system diseases; Cognitive disorder; Alzheimer disease; Daily living; Ethnic group; Cerebral disorder; Language; Reasoning; Central nervous system disease; Race; Problem solving; Degenerative disease; Elderly
• ISSN: 1041-6102; 1741-203X; 1741-203X
• DOI: 10.1017/S104161020200830X

In this exploratory study, we compared the performance of 10 African American and 26 European American persons with early-to mid-stage Alzheimer's disease (AD) to 20 nondemented elderly (NE), using a shortened version of the Test of Problem Solving (TOPS). The TOPS measures verbal reasoning to solve everyday problems in five areas: explaining inferences, determining causes, answering negative why questions, determining solutions, and avoiding problems. Six linguistic measures were also examined: total utterances, abandoned utterances, length of utterances, maze words, questions, and total words. NE performed better than AD subjects on all but one measure of verbal reasoning ability. AD subjects also showed a trend to use more total utterances and abandoned utterances than NE. For the AD group, no ethnic differences were found for verbal reasoning or linguistic measures. The findings from this preliminary investigation suggest that, compared to European Americans, African American persons with AD demonstrate similar everyday problem solving and linguistic skills. Thus, assessments such as TOPS that examine everyday problem solving may be a useful nonbiased evaluation tool for persons with AD in these two ethnic groups.