ABSTRACT
Brazil has seen an increase in its elder population in the last 60 years. The population of those over the age of 60 in Brazil has increased from 2 million in 1950 to 14.5 million in 2000 (Reboucas & Pereira, 2008). By the year 2020, it is estimated that Brazil will have the sixth largest elder population in the world (OPAS/OMS, 1998). The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IGBE, 2006) approximated that 17 million seniors live in Brazil and 12.8% of those are over the age of 80. Dementia rates in Brazil have not been well established, but a review of the literature by Fagundes and colleagues (2011) revealed that the prevalence of dementia was highest among women, those living in poverty, those who are illiterate, and the very elderly. However, their findings were based on a review of only a few population-based studies. Given that this is a rapidly aging population, this chapter will focus on the neuropsychological evaluation of the elderly Brazilian immigrant population living in the United States. Although exact data on the number of elderly Brazilian immigrants living in the U.S. remains unknown, resources have noted that an influx of immigrants during the early 1980s into Massachusetts were mostly between the ages of 18 and 40, suggesting an aging population over the last 30 years (Becker, 2006).
