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Women
with Alzheimer's disease tend to perform worse than men on
tests of intellectual abilities, according to researchers
in Germany.
When compared
to men, women also seem to have slight weaknesses in spatial
thinking ability -- regardless of whether dementia is present,
the researchers added.
The study
included 84 Alzheimer's patients and 438 non-demented elderly,
who were assessed using the standard diagnostic interview
for Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia.
Subscores
for various cognitive functions were compared between men
and women, after accounting for variables such as age, degree
of cognitive impairment, level of education, presence of lifetime
diagnosis of major depression and of recent depressive symptoms.
Results
of the study, appearing in Archives of Women's Mental Health,
showed the cognitive skills of non-demented women to be inferior
to those of the men.
While
the skills of women with Alzheimer's disease were similarly
lower as well, researchers also observed that Alzheimer's
women also performed worse on tests of intellectual abilities.
"Gender
differences in the neurodegenerative process of AD may add
to gender differences in domain specific cognitive impairment,"
the researchers said. "Further research on this topic
is needed."
Source:
Alzheimer Week
of June 2, 2002
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