From Assessment to Implementation - Innovations to Decreasing Dementia Risk in Rural Settings - Symposium 4045

Sep 28, 2026

Symposium 4045 presents innovations aimed at decreasing dementia risk in rural U.S. regions, addressing gaps in assessment, recruitment, data collection, and interventions. Speakers share methods spanning home, clinic, and community settings, including ethnographic and socioecological frameworks to identify dementia-relevant themes. New work examines links between social isolation, environment, and cognition using smartwatch-based measures in a rural farmworker population. Additional studies compare MoCA-based dementia risk across rural, micropolitan, and urban samples, and adapt faith-based models for upstream education, screening, and treatment. Cassandra Ford synthesizes policy and practice implications for future implementation.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages1

Reading Time3 min

AccessFree to download

Symposium Overview

Assessment, Recruitment, and Data Collection

Interventions Across Home, Clinic, and Community

Policy and Practice Implications

SESSION 4045 (SYMPOSIUM) Abstract citation ID: igaf122.1596 FROM ASSESSMENT TO IMPLEMENTATION: INNOVATIONS TO DECREASING DEMENTIA RISK IN RURAL SETTINGS Chair: Lisa Wiese Co-Chair: Heather Fuller Discussant: Cassandra Ford Though rural U.S. counties comprise 85% of the “older-age counties,”where more than 20% of residents are >65, innovative interventions to minimize the age-related risk of dementia are not well established. This symposium offers advances in assessment, recruitment, data collection, and interventions among rural U.S. regions. Fergen and colleagues share findings from their approach of using merged ethnographic and socioecological frameworks to identify dementia-focused themes that can be applied when developing interventions across the home, clinic, and community in rural northern Minnesota. Second, Cook et al. reveals new findings regarding the intersection of social isolation and environment in the rural community, through novel smartwatch-based measures of socialization and physical activity and how they relate to cognitive performance in older racially/ ethnically diverse adults living in a rural southern Florida farmworker region. Third, Ghazi and colleagues compare the level of dementia risk as measured by the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) across rural, micropolitan, and urban samples as a means for informing future innovations. Wiese’s team concludes the symposium by demonstrating the effectiveness of adapting a faith-based framework for cancer detection and diagnosis, to anew focus area; cognitive decline. This model, tested in a southern, rural, racially/ethnically diverse cohort, can serve as an upstream approach to increase primary (education), secondary (screening), and tertiary (treatment) of dementia in other rural settings. Finally, as discussant, Ford will synthesize implications of these findings for policy and practice. Combined, these abstracts provide a pathway for diminishing the threat of cognitive decline in rural communities.

FAQs

Why does the symposium focus on rural dementia risk?

Rural U.S. counties make up a large share of older-age counties, yet innovative interventions to reduce age-related dementia risk are not well established.

What kinds of innovations are highlighted in the symposium?

The program covers advances in assessment, recruitment, data collection, and interventions, including ethnographic/socioecological approaches, smartwatch-based measures, and comparative MoCA analyses.

How will the findings be used beyond the study settings?

The symposium concludes with implications for adapting upstream, secondary, and tertiary strategies in other rural settings, supported by policy and practice synthesis.

Sep 28, 2026

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