Abstract
Abstract
Background: Our project is based on an ongoing dementia research study among the Norwegian population with Pakistani origin in the age group 50 years+. This research project is led by Professor Knut Engedal and Dr. Peter Wetterberg working at Oslo University Hospital at Ullevaal. Our project is about translation of the Rowland Universal Dementia Assessment Scale (RUDAS) and the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) from Norwegian to Urdu and back translation to Norwegian. We have focused on the linguistic and cultural differences between the two languages.
Methods: We started with collecting information about research done on the RUDAS and the MMSE. Different sources were used to collect information such as books about dementia, dementia studies and science based literature on the Internet. The next step was to translate RUDAS and MMSE. Thereafter we used the translated versions by testing 14 healthy Norwegians over 50 years of age with Pakistani origin. Based on this testing, the quality of the Urdu version was judged and adjustments were made.
Results: Translation of the RUDAS and the MMSE to Urdu required some adjustments in the sentence structure to obtain the actual meaning of the text in both tests. Some sentences had to be removed or fused together to one sentence, and sometimes we had to add a few extra phrases to maintain the main context. We noticed during the interviews that the MMSE had an education bias while a cultural bias was detectable in the RUDAS.