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Review
. 2010 Jul-Sep;4(3):153-157.
doi: 10.1590/S1980-57642010DN40300002.

Illiteracy and dementia

Sonia Maria Dozzi Brucki  1
Affiliations
Review

Illiteracy and dementia

Sonia Maria Dozzi Brucki. Dement Neuropsychol. 2010 Jul-Sep.

Abstract
in English, Portuguese

There is a current concept that illiteracy and lower educational levels are risk factors for cognitive decline and dementia. Our aims were to review the association between illiteracy and dementia; and to describe some results on neuropsychological findings in illiteracy. A literature search of the PubMed database was performed. The search terms were "dementia", "illiteracy", "neuropsychological evaluation", "educational levels", and "education". Only papers published in Portuguese, English, and Spanish were reviewed. Illiteracy is an incontestable risk factor for dementia. It influences performance on almost cognitive tests. Many other factors could be connected to the high prevalence of dementia among illiterates: low cognitive reserve, poor control of cerebrovascular disease risk factors, difficulties in cognitive evaluation, and poor adaptation of neuropsychological tests for this specific population. Functional tests must be coupled with cognitive tests to ameliorate diagnostic accuracy.

Há um conceito corrente na literatura de que analfabetismo e baixos níveis educacionais são fatores de risco para declínio cognitivo e demência. Nossos objetivos foram revisar a associação entre analfabetismo e demência e descrever alguns resultados de achados neuropsicológicos no analfabetismo. A revisão de literatura foi realizada procurando-se os termos “dementia”, “illiteracy”, “neuropsychological evaluation”, “educational levels” e “education”. Somente artigos publicados em português, inglês e espanhol foram revistos. Analfabetismo é um fator de risco incontestável para demência, influenciando o desempenho em quase todos os testes. Muitos outros fatores podem ser ligados aos altos índices de demência entre analfabetos: baixa reserva cognitiva, controle pobre dos fatores de risco para doenças cerebrovasculares, dificuldades na avaliação cognitiva e adaptação pobre dos testes neuropsicológicos para este tipo de população. Testes funcionais devem ser acoplados aos testes cognitivos a fim de aumentar a acurácia diagnóstica.

Keywords: cognition; dementia; education; illiteracy; neuropsychological evaluation.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosure: The author reports no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Illiteracy rates by age group, and urban or rural household.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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