PHILADELPHIA Antonio Vasquez was just 60 when Alzheimers disease derailed him.
!["Latino]("http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/10/20/us/20081020ALZHEIMERS-B.JPG")
Slide Show RelatedHe lost his job at a Queens bakery because he kept burning chocolate chip cookies, forgetting he had put them in the oven. Then he got lost going to job interviews, walking his neighborhood in circles.
Teresa Mojica of Philadelphia was 59 when she got Alzheimers, making her so argumentative and delusional that she sometimes hits her husband. And Ida J. Lawrence was 57 when she started misplacing things and making mistakes in her Boston dental school job.
Besides being young Alzheimers patients most Americans who develop it are at least 65, and it becomes more common among people in their 70s or 80s the three are Hispanic, a group that Alzheimers doctors are increasingly concerned about, and not just because it is the countrys largest, fastest-growing minority.
Studies suggest that many Hispanics may have more risk factors for developing dementia than other groups, and a significant number appear to be getting Alzheimers earlier. And surveys indicate that Latinos, less likely to see doctors because of financial and language barriers, more often mistake dementia symptoms for normal aging, delaying diagnosis.
This is the tip of the iceberg of a huge public health challenge, said Yanira L. Cruz, president of the National Hispanic Council on Aging. We really need to do more research in this population to really understand why is it that were developing these conditions much earlier.
It is not that Hispanics are more genetically predisposed to Alzheimers, say experts, who say the diversity of ethnicities that make up Hispanics or Latinos make a genetic explanation unlikely.
Rather, experts say several factors, many linked to low income or cultural dislocation, may put Hispanics at greater risk for dementia, including higher rates of diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, stroke and possibly hypertension.
Less education may make Hispanic immigrants more vulnerable to those medical conditions and to dementia because scientists say education may increase the brains plasticity or ability to compensate for symptoms. And some researchers cite as risk factors stress from financial hardship or cultural adjustment.
The Alzheimers Association says that about 200,000 Latinos in the United States have Alzheimers, but that, by 2050, based on Census Bureau figures and a study of Alzheimers prevalence, the number could reach 1.3 million. (It predicts that the general population of Alzheimers patients will grow to 16 million by 2050, from 5 million now.)
We are concerned that the Latino population may have the highest amount of risk factors and prevalence, in comparison to the other cultures, said Maria Carrillo, the groups director of medical and scientific relations.
In response, Alzheimers and Hispanic organizations have started health fairs and support groups. Some Alzheimers centers have opened clinics in Latino neighborhoods.
Theres some taboos about Alzheimers, said Liany Arroyo, director of the Institute for Hispanic Health at the National Council of La Raza, which surveyed Latinos. Folks did not necessarily understand what it was.
Antonia Lopez, who immigrated from Panama to Boston, showed symptoms at about 60, but it was 10 years before the family acknowledged it was Alzheimers, said her daughter, Carol Franklin.
My mom was telling people, in her confusion, that I spanked her, she said. My brother believed that. He said to me at one point, Dont say that my mom has Alzheimers, because I believe its just part of being old.
Overwhelmingly, Hispanics with Alzheimers live with multigenerational families instead of in nursing homes. That support can be beneficial, experts say, but it severely stresses families.
When Maria Contreras, a Salvadoran immigrant, began wandering and hallucinating, her daughter, Teresa Navas, took her into her home in Silver Spring, Md. The strain on Ms. Navas and her children compelled her to place her mother in a nursing home, but when she kept getting sick, Ms. Navas took her home again and quit her job teaching Spanish.
I have to be with her all the time, she said. Sometimes she doesnt even know who I am.
Mr. Vasquezs daughter, Ana, 39, moved her parents to her Philadelphia home. She works at a neighborhood grocery and tells her sons, 6 and 11, Watch out for your grandfather.
Once, Mr. Vasquez was found hitchhiking on a major Philadelphia street. On a visit to the Bronx neighborhood where he had lived, he wandered away, leaving his family frenetically searching subway stations. I was desperate, crying, especially when the night was coming, said his wife, also named Ana.