Emerging Adults' Perception of the Typical Dementia Patient Based on Gender and Race.

Abstract

IntroductionThough Black Americans are twice as likely as White Americans to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease, they may be excluded from the mental representation of a person with dementia.MethodsParticipants (N = 143, median age = 19) created visualized mental representations of a person, a man, a woman, a Black man, or a Black woman diagnosed with dementia by repeatedly selecting which among 12 faces looked most like each target category.ResultsThe visualized representation of a person with dementia was more similar to the representation of a man and a Black woman than to a Black man and a woman, respectively.DiscussionThese findings highlight how intersectionality shapes mental representations of dementia, revealing that certain combinations of marginalized identities are perceived differently rather than excluded entirely.