What happens when we forget our own narrative: Transgender dementia case study

Area of Science:

• Neuropsychology
• Gerontology
• Transgender Health

Background:

• Geriatric neuropsychological evaluations present challenges due to health, psychiatric, and lifestyle factors impacting cognition.
• Evaluating elderly transgender individuals is a novel challenge, lacking specific normative data in neuropsychological assessments.
• Current neuropsychological scoring often relies on binary gender categorization, potentially limiting accurate interpretation for transgender individuals.

Observation:

• This article details a case study of an 85-year-old transgender female referred for neuropsychological evaluation due to cognitive and functional decline.
• The patient exhibited significant decline across multiple cognitive domains during the evaluation.

Findings:

• When applying binary male and female normative data, the patient's neuropsychological scores did not show statistically significant differences across most cognitive domains.
• The marked cognitive impairment in the patient made it challenging to discern nuanced gender-related differences.

Implications:

• The findings suggest a need to re-evaluate the significance of gender as a normative factor in neuropsychological assessments, particularly in geriatric populations.
• Further research with less cognitively impaired transgender individuals may be necessary to explore potential gender-specific cognitive differences.
• This case highlights the importance of developing inclusive neuropsychological assessment tools and normative data for diverse populations.