![]() ![]() My dad has it, I had it, I was a refugee,” said Paul Hoang, a licensed clinical social worker and the co-host of a Vietnamese community television program. Rather, they thought memory loss and psychiatric symptoms of the disease - such as paranoia, anxiety and depression - were simply a natural process of aging.Įducating the community about risk factors for dementia, she said, will be crucial in developing effective prevention measures and treatments.“Post traumatic stress is very prevalent in the community. While conducting her research on Vietnamese American caregivers, Meyer found that family members of people with dementia often refused to believe their loved ones were experiencing a mental or neurological illness. The community stigma against mental illness, Meyer said, is a strong deterrent, as is a lack of culturally and linguistically appropriate care. Vietnamese Americans, however, face a number of barriers to seeking treatment for trauma and dementia. “So I think about my generation: Are we at increased risk for dementia later on? If so, how do we target early intervention and prevention?” “That caring piece starts when we’re translating for our parents or taking them to doctor’s appointments,” Meyer said. The study will look into intergenerational transmission of trauma - the idea that elders who have dementia may pass on their wartime memories and trauma to children and relatives who are caring for them. ![]() Some 70 percent of Southeast Asian refugees who receive mental health care were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a 2006 study from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. Since the fall of Saigon in 1975, more than 1.2 million Southeast Asian refugees have resettled in the U.S., making them the largest refugee group in the country. California is home to 40 percent of the country’s 1.4 million Vietnamese residents, and greater Los Angeles boasts the largest Vietnamese population in a U.S. ![]() Meyer’s five-year investigation, which is supported by a $7.2 million grant from the National Institute on Aging, will track the cognitive health of more than 500 Vietnamese elders in Northern California, which has a sizable Vietnamese population and a strong network of social services groups. “If we know about certain risk factors - not only trauma but also cardiovascular factors like smoking, blood pressure - that are related to dementia, we can target them for intervention early on in future generations.” “The goal is to raise awareness about dementia, not just in the academic sphere,” Meyer said. But no one has yet published a study on the roots and prevalence of the disease - and how it might be tied to early life adversity - in the Vietnamese diaspora. These indicators for mental and cardiovascular health, Meyer said, make aging Vietnamese Americans a demographic at high risk for Alzheimer’s and dementia. For refugees like her mother, those core memories are often tied to their experiences during the war. A significant portion of the population lives with depression due to experiences of war trauma and resettlement challenges.Įarly stage dementia and Alzheimer’s disease affects short-term memory but leaves long-term memory mostly intact, Meyer said, so it’s not uncommon for people to relive indelible moments from decades earlier. In her 2015 research on caregivers, Meyer found that Vietnamese Americans, the fourth-largest Asian origin group in the U.S., appeared to be at critical risk for poor physical and mental health, due to low educational attainment, household income and English language proficiency. “And hopefully we can find intervention and services that can help them and their adult children, as well.” “I hope it’ll provide a voice to the community about what they’re going through,” Meyer, 45, told NBC Asian America. The investigation comes at a crucial moment, as many refugees who fled Saigon in the mid-1970s are reaching ages at which people with dementia begin showing symptoms. Now an associate adjunct professor at the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at the University of California, Davis, Meyer is leading the country’s first longitudinal study into links between wartime trauma and dementia in the Vietnamese American community. Soon after, Meyer’s uncle and aunt, also war refugees, began showing similar symptoms.
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