Cross-Cultural Cognitive Examination in Aging Migrants

Due to demographic aging, the global prevalence of cognitive disorders is expected to increase significantly over the coming decades. At the same time, migration and globalization are currently changing populations throughout the World. With an increasing number of aging migrants, the prevalence of cognitive disorders will inevitably increase in these populations. This poses challenges to neurological practice, including cross-cultural cognitive examination. In particular, language barriers may pose a complex challenge to cognitive examinations in aging migrants and may necessitate the use of interpreters. Despite the development and implementation of several biomarkers for Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive disorders, cognitive testing retains a central role in the clinical diagnosis of cognitive disorders. However, many routinely used cognitive tests suffer from both cultural, language, and educational biases which limit their usefulness for the purpose of cross-cultural cognitive examinations. This may be particularly evident in the case of aging migrants with limited schooling and proficiency in the majority language in the receiving country. The use of professional interpreters and cross-cultural tests designed and validated for cognitive examination in aging migrants may help alleviate some of the cultural, language and educational biases. However, several challenges associated with cross-cultural cognitive examination remain unresolved. With increasing demographic aging, migration and globalization, however, researchers and clinicians need to address these challenges, as we must expect experience with cross-cultural cognitive examination to represent an important competence in clinical neurology in the twenty-first century.