Aging Diversity in Peru

Three weeks after the Peruvian government decreed total quarantine throughout the country (on that March 15, 2020), Alex Kornhuber began to portray how older adults dealt with the virus and how we, Peruvians, are aging: abruptly, surviving, in dementia or through resilience and functionality. Since April 2020, Kornhuber has travelled extensively by Peru's coastal lowlands, the Andes and the Amazon to show the aging processes of people in dissimilar contexts, in the city and in the countryside: separate cultures and geographies. In the country with the highest COVID death rate per capita in the world, there are still many doubts and questions on how the virus has impacted on older adults’ cognitive impairment, or why dementia is more prevalent among women. Enigmas that underlie human experience.

Coordinator
Dr. Serggio Lanata (GBHI/UCSF)

Collaborating neurologists
Dr. Maritza Pintado (GBHI fellow / now working at the IPN)
Dr. Nilton Custodio of the Peruvian Institute of Neurosciences (IPN)
Dr. Roger Maza, in Trujillo, La Libertad
Dr. Natali Núñez, in Chiclayo, Lambayeque
Dr. Jonel Chirinos, in Piura, Peru

Writing and fieldwork
Susana Lay
Irene Arce

This project is supported by
Alzheimer's Association
Atlantic Institute
Global Brain Health Institute (GBHI) + University of California-San Francisco (UCSF)