“I Know Hyena. Do you Know Hyena?” Challenges in Interpreter-Mediated Dementia Assessment, Focusing on the Role of the Interpreter

Dementia assessment requires functional communication and interaction between healthcare professionals and the patient being assessed. These can be affected by the requirement for an interpreter to communicate with the patient. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the interactions between patient, healthcare professionals and interpreter, focusing on the role of the interpreter and the challenges that may arise in interpreter-mediated dementia assessment. The study had an ethnographic design in which the data consisted of audio and video recordings of 19 dementia assessments conducted in the presence of an interpreter. The data were analyzed using the constant comparative method. The results showed that the interpreter could affect the patient’s performance and results during the dementia assessment. The interpreter could alter the meaning and content of what was communicated, sometimes change information and instructions exchanged between the patient and healthcare professionals, could avoid interpreting everything being said, and occasionally made their own corrections to what was being communicated. This occurred mainly because of the interpreter’s lack of linguistic skills and the interpreter failing to adhere to the ethical guidelines governing their profession. These challenges could also occur when the interpreter was not familiar with the context of dementia assessment. Alterations made by the interpreter to what was being communicated could lead to incorrect evaluation of the patient’s cognitive abilities and health status. This, in turn, may lead to misjudgment of the patient’s remaining resources and symptoms and their required treatment and support.