Neuropsychological differences between men and women with Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

Background: It has been suggested that men and women with Alzheimer's disease (AD) at comparable levels of global cognitive impairment perform differently on neuropsychological measures. Such differences may have practical implications for designing cognitive interventions that address symptoms of dementia.

Methods: We compared men (n = 86) and women (n = 96) with AD on tests of immediate and delayed prose memory, verbal fluency, semantic fluency, semantic memory and confrontation naming. Mean years for age, education and duration of illness were 70.81 (SD = 7.55), 13.37 (SD = 3.38) and 2.17 (SD = 1.72) for men and 73.11(SD = 8.53), 12.27 (SD = 2.86) and 2.42 (SD = 1.92) for women. The groups were comparable in global cognitive functioning as indicated by Dementia Rating Scale total scores for men of 89.27 (SD = 29.80) and women of 90.86 (SD = 30.20).

Results: Men earned significantly better scores in immediate prose memory, semantic verbal fluency, semantic memory and response naming. Men and women performed similarly on the remaining tests. When the variables of age, education and duration of disease were controlled, the significant effect of gender was maintained only on tests of semantic fluency, semantic memory and confrontation naming.

Conclusions: The hypothesis of the study was partially confirmed in that women with AD evidenced greater impairment than men with AD on three of six neuropsychological measures even after potentially confounding variables were controlled.

Keywords: Alzheimer's disease; confrontation naming; gender; prose memory; semantic memory.