Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it is a progressive disease beginning with mild memory loss and possibly leading to loss of the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to the environment. It involves parts of the brain that control thought, memory, and language.
Currently, there are more than 6.7 million Americans living with Alzheimer’s in the United States. And that number is expected to grow to 12.7 million by 2050. According to the 2023 Alzheimer’s Disease Facts and Figures report, 13% of Hispanics who are 65 years or older have Alzheimer’s or another dementia. In addition, Hispanics are 1.5 times more likely than white people to develop Alzheimer’s and other dementia.
Most research related to increased risk of Alzheimer’s among Hispanics/Latinos points to a combination of socioeconomic factors and a higher prevalence of several health conditions. Hispanic Americans are more likely than White Americans to have uncontrolled high blood pressure and diabetes, have a higher prevalence of heart disease and stroke, and also face barriers to accessing preventive services such as exercise programs, early diagnosis and medication.
“Socioeconomic factors such as education, income and occupation deeply affect the incidence of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementia, and usually sustain and worsen health disparities,” says Maria Mora Pinzon, M.D., M.S., a primary care research fellow and scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “Health disparities are due to social, economic and/or environmental disadvantages. For example, someone who can’t complete high school because they have to work to help the family will not only drop out of school — which is a risk factor — they “will have fewer opportunities for stable jobs, resulting in lower incomes, difficulty getting healthy foods, physical inactivity, and more barriers to control chronic conditions like high blood pressure.”
“Is this because of cultural factors? Is it because the patient does not speak the language? There are many factors to take into account when evaluating a Latino patient,” said Carmen Carrión, a neuropsychologist at Yale Medicine.
According to Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of Alzheimer’s Association, Latinos in the U.S. Living with Alzheimer’s and other dementias would increase by more than five times within the next 40 years, the largest increase among racial and ethnic groups. By 2060, there will be 3.2 million Hispanic Americans living with the disease.
“There’s no clear answer that says this is why Latinos are at risk of developing Alzheimer’s,” said Maria Aranda, professor at the University of Southern California and executive director of USC’s Edward R. Roybal Institute on Aging.
“The only way that we’re really going to understand how or why it manifests differently among diverse communities is by having these diverse Latino Hispanic communities participating in the research and clinical trials,” said Carrión. “But we have to do a better job of getting that message out there.”
“Alzheimer’s is a neurological disease, meaning it’s a disease of the brain and nerves that affects memory and cognition, our ability to remember things our ability to learn new things,” said Zaldy Tan, M.D. and dementia specialist at Cedars-Sinai.
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