Poster Session 11 Program Schedule
02/17/2024
10:45 am - 12:00 pm
Room: Shubert Complex (Posters 1-60)
Poster Session 11: Cultural Neuropsychology | Education/Training | Professional Practice Issues
Final Abstract #54
A Study Examining the Relationship of Psychomotor Functioning and Late Life Depression in a Community-Dwelling Elderly Chinese Immigrant Population in the Chicagoland Area
Irene Liem, Wheaton College, Wheaton, United States
Kai Wen Ong, King's College, London, United Kingdom
Li Ting Ng, Wheaton College, Wheaton, United States
Category: Cross Cultural Neuropsychology/ Clinical Cultural Neuroscience
Keyword 1: depression
Keyword 2: cognitive functioning
Keyword 3: cross-cultural issues
Objective:
Among the geriatric population, late-life depression is a common and complicated mental health concern frequently associated with psychomotor impairments (Alexopoulos, 2019). Despite significant advances to our current understanding of the neuropsychological mechanism underpinning LLD, there has been limited exploration of the specific association between psychomotor functioning and LLD among non-clinical populations. Prior studies on LLD often emphasized isolated aspects, commonly investigating LLD severity with an independent cognitive construct (Bennabi et al., 2013). Moreover, such studies are usually experimental and assess changes in cognitive functioning and depression scores following a particular intervention (Riddle et al., 2017). Novelly, the current study adopts a cross-sectional multimodal methodology by integrating Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS) scores with the Repeatable Battery for the Assessment of Neuropsychological Status (RBANS) coding subtest results, which capture a range of psychomotor domains. This approach bridges research gaps by addressing emotional and motor-cognitive characteristics in the Chinese-speaking community by offering a more in-depth and holistic insight into mechanisms underpinning the complex and nuanced relationship between psychomotor functioning and LLD.
Participants and Methods:
This study's participants are community-dwelling Chinese immigrants aged 65 and above who voluntarily elected to participate (N=28). All participants live in Greater Chicagoland and report Mandarin Chinese as their native language. Participants who self-reported themselves as fluent in English were excluded. Additionally, the study only includes older adults who can read, sign, or verbally consent to the informed consent. This study excluded older adults who no longer hold personal guardianship or cannot sign or comprehend the informed consent. Participants were recruited through snowball sampling. The assessments (RBANS and GDS) were administered via tele-neuropsychology (TNP) format in Mandarin Chinese, and the assessments were modified and adapted to an online delivery format.
Results:
Results indicated no significant correlations between psychomotor functioning as measured by the RBANS coding subtest and depressive symptoms measured by GDS.
Conclusions:
The lack of a significant correlation between coding and GDS results indicated no association between psychomotor functioning as measured by the RBANS coding subtest and depressive symptoms measured by GDS.
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