A task force for diagnosis and treatment of people with Alzheimer’s disease in Latin America

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) represents a substantial burden to patients, their caregivers, health systems, and society in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). This impact is exacerbated by limited access to diagnosis, specialized care, and therapies for AD within and among nations. The region has varied geographic, ethnic, cultural, and economic conditions, which create unique challenges to AD diagnosis and management. To address these issues, the Americas Health Foundation convened a panel of eight neurologists, geriatricians, and psychiatrists from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, and Peru who are experts in AD for a three-day virtual meeting to discuss best practices for AD diagnosis and treatment in LAC and create a manuscript offering recommendations to address identified barriers. In LAC, several barriers hamper diagnosing and treating people with dementia. These barriers include access to healthcare, fragmented healthcare systems, limited research funding, unstandardized diagnosis and treatment, genetic heterogeneity, and varying social determinants of health. Additional training for physicians and other healthcare workers at the primary care level, region-specific or adequately adapted cognitive tests, increased public healthcare insurance coverage of testing and treatment, and dedicated search strategies to detect populations with gene variants associated with AD are among the recommendations to improve the landscape of AD.

Bibliometric Analysis of the Research Landscape in Human-Computer Interaction in Ibero-America

“…Between 2020 and 2023, multiple recurring factors have been distinguished in the HCI literature. First, the domain of video games has undergone a significant evolution, mainly influenced by advances in machine learning and virtual reality technologies and typically employed in educational aspects [45]. Another fundamental element in the domain is virtual communication, which has materialized through different applications such as artificial intelligence [46] or eHealth systems [47].…”

The impact of COVID-19 post-infection on the cognition of adults from Peru

“…The individual's score is determined by the time to complete each test. This test has shown good validity and reliability with normative data for Latin America and Perú (Hernández-Sampieri et al, 2010), as good clinical validity (Chino et al, 2022;Lopera et al, 2023), even in low-educated populations (Margulis et al, 2018). An increased time in the execution writes down worse performance.…”

“…The distribution of the high and extremely high vulnerability index in rural provinces located or bordering the Andes Mountains increases the lower access to health services and other public services and unfavorable socioeconomic conditions in the populations in the mountainous regions ( Zegarra Zamalloa et al, 2022 ). The high prevalence of lower educational achievement, sociodemographic disparities, and ethnic and cultural diversity in LA could explain the deficient performance of illiterate and educated individuals on neuropsychological tests ( Chino et al, 2022 ; Santamaria-Garcia et al, 2023 ; Zegarra-valdivia et al, 2023 ) and might contribute to misdiagnosis in non-clinic context ( Arafat et al, 2016 ; Rosselli et al, 2022 ; Lopera et al, 2023 ). The main aim was to determine the impact of COVID-19 history on general cognition and executive function.…”

Advancements in dementia research, diagnostics, and care in Latin America: Highlights from the 2023 Alzheimer's Association International conference satellite symposium in Mexico City

“…Several publications have emerged from this group, highlighting the importance of defining dementias on a biological basis using biomarkers. 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 For example, in a study of 60 participants from the arg‐ADNI cohort, it was found that 14% of controls, 30% of early MCIs, 53% of late MCIs, and 83% of those with dementia of AD type were amyloid positive using PET imaging ( 11 ‐C‐PIB). Application of the ATN framework revealed that the conversion rate from MCI to dementia after 5 years of follow‐up was 85% and 50% for A+T+N+ and A−T−N+ patients, respectively.…”