Mild Cognitive Impairment in Older Rural Dwelling Adults

描述（由申请人提供）：虽然超过20%的美国人口生活在农村地区，这是一个服务不足和研究不足的人口。与全国其他地区相比，农村成年人的健康状况不成比例地差，健康结果更差。相当少的研究集中在老年人，农村居民的认知健康结果及其风险因素。在这些认知变化中，轻度认知障碍（MCI）是一种影响多达19%的美国老年人的疾病，被广泛认为是阿尔茨海默病和其他痴呆症的风险状态。因此，MCI代表了旨在对痴呆症进行二级预防的干预措施的关键目标。我们有理由相信，老年人，农村成年人特别容易受到MCI，根据已知的较高比例的因素与综合征。问题复杂化、资源有限和获得护理的机会有限，可能导致认知变化的检测延迟，使农村成年人成为特别脆弱的群体，可能被剥夺了在疾病过程中进行筛查和早期干预的机会。根据已知的农村健康差异，特别是后来的慢性病诊断，这是合理的假设，MCI可能会出现在其过程中，在农村成年人，但研究描述老年人，农村居住的成年人MCI是缺席的文献。本研究的主要目的是确定农村居住是否是延迟检测MCI的独特危险因素。这项新的研究将检查MCI症状的严重程度和定性描述，以深入了解农村认知健康。该研究旨在通过提高对弱势人群MCI的理解来推动科学发展，这可能最终指导未来健康促进研究的发展。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Although more than 20% of the US population live in rural areas, this is an underserved and understudied population. Rural adults suffer disproportionately poorer health and worse health outcomes compared with the rest of the nation. Considerably less research has focused on cognitive health outcomes and their risk factors among older, rural dwelling adults. Among these cognitive changes is mild cognitive impairment (MCI), a condition that affects as many as 19% of older US adults and is widely recognized as a risk state for Alzheimer's Disease and other dementias. As such, MCI represents a key target for interventions aimed at the secondary prevention of dementia. We have reason to believe that older, rural adults are especially vulnerable to MCI, based on known higher rates of factors associated with the syndrome. Complicating matters, limited resources and access to care may lead to delayed detection of cognitive changes, making rural adults an especially vulnerable group that is possibly deprived of opportunities for screening and early intervention in the disease process. Based on known rural health disparities, especially later diagnosis of chronic diseases, it is reasonable to hypothesize that MCI may present later in its course in rural adults, but studies describing older, rural dwelling adults with MCI are absent from the literature. The primary purpose of this study is to determine if rural residence is a unique risk factor for delayed detection of MCI. This novel study will examine MCI symptom severity and qualitative description to gain insight into rural cognitive health. The study seeks t advance the science by improving the understanding of MCI in a vulnerable population, which may ultimately direct the development of future health promotion research.