Accredit Seniors About Alzheimer’s

Identification of a senior’s enhanced potential for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has personal and societal benefits, say researchers at University of Miami and Florida Atlantic University. Although there is currently no cure for AD, early diagnosis allows for treatments which delay the progression and for contingency planning.
     Yet many seniors who show preliminary signs, such as confusion, decline opportunities for screening. What measures, then, work best to persuade suitable seniors to participate? The most important answer, the researchers found, has to do with a senior believing they’re capable of handling news of an AD diagnosis. It’s a characteristic psychologists call “self-efficacy,” and it arises when a person feels empowered by education. Before suggesting to a senior that they undergo the screening, qualify them to make informed decisions about the diagnostic procedure and about living with AD.
     Self-efficacy also develops from social norms. In the research, seniors were more likely to be interested in AD screening when they heard their peers were undergoing it or believed that people they respect would want them to do it. It was found that the women, who are more sensitive than men to social norms, were more likely than the men to agree to AD screening. This is consistent with other research showing women play closer attention to their ongoing health and that wives are effective at coaching husbands to engage in preventive health care.
     These Miami / Florida Atlantic recommendations were based on structured surveying of 1,043 people ages 50 to 97 years who tested as showing no evidence of dementia, and then sophisticated statistical analyses of the results.
     In the studies, seniors carrying long-term care insurance were more likely to agree to AD screening. The researchers attribute this to knowing the cost of the screening would be covered. Another likely reason, in my opinion, is that those with the insurance are more comfortable that if AD develops, they won’t be such a burden on others. The long-term care insurance will provide personal assistance and pay at least some of the fees.
     This derives from the question, seen especially in the elderly, that if you can’t do anything about a problem, why expend resources discovering it? Beyond this is a concern about stigma. If there’s evidence of future AD, the senior will think less of themselves. More importantly, other people will consider the senior’s current capabilities as inferior even prior to any marked deterioration.

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