Duluth-based researchers probe indigenous dementia – Duluth News Tribune
Can you name the prime minister of Canada?
You probably can, and if you’re Canadian you almost certainly can. That’s why the question is asked in Canada as part of the diagnostic assessment of whether a person may have a form of dementia.
Only it turns out, it wasn’t a helpful question for First Nations people — the equivalent of Native Americans in the U.S.
“People pointed that one out,” Kristen Jacklin said. “They said, ‘Ask me who the chief is. I know that.’”
A native of Parry Sound, Ontario, Jacklin spent 20 years conducting medical anthropological research among seven First Nations bands on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron, including 12 years with the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. Her research was community-based, she said, meaning it was driven by what community members wanted to know. She started with a focus on diabetes, but at the request of the island’s indigenous people, switched to dementia.
