Long-term effects of a natural disaster on cognitive aging, dementia, health and well-being of older adults
Summary
The pace of cognitive change with age and the dynamics of the emergence of dementias and other ADs are difficult to study in population-representative samples. In this project we will harness unique data to examine the interlinkages of age, gender, physical and psychosocial health, family and economic context, and cognition and dementias, and how cognitive outcomes evolve over time. In addition we will take advantage of a natural experiment to examine how these relationships and evolution vary for individuals exposed to a large-scale shock. Finally, we will enrich our data by piloting and fielding protocols for diagnoses of AD for a subset of survey respondents and developing methods for more widespread inclusion in household-based fieldwork. The fieldwork will take place in Aceh, Indonesia, parts of which were devastated by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Results from this project will inform knowledge of how cognition and dementia evolve in a low resource setting, how both are affected by exposure to an extreme event and its complex aftermath, and provide detailed information on how to collect cognition data from older adults.