GENDER COMPARISONS OF COGNITIVE PERFORMANCES AMONG VASCULAR DEMENTIA,ALZHEIMER-DISEASE, AND OLDER ADULTS WITHOUT DEMENTIA

Background: We hypothesized that women with Alzheimer disease (AD) wou ld perform worse on a test of semantic memory but not on tests of othe r cognitive domains. We did not expect that women without dementia wou ld perform more poorly than men without dementia on the same task. Obj ective: To explore the specificity of a semantic memory deficit among women with AD by exploring gender differences among a group of subject s with vascular dementia (VD). Design: A case-control study in which d ifferences between men and women were explored using regression models to control for the potentially confounding effects of age, education, duration of dementia, and severity of dementia. Setting: Alzheimer's Disease Research Center Consortium of Los Angeles and Orange Counties, California. Subjects: Volunteers, recruited from the community or cli nic referrals, who met clinical criteria for AD (n=159) or VD (n=117) or met criteria for control status without dementia (n=134). Main Outc ome Measures: Five neuropsychological measures, commonly used in the d iagnosis and assessment of dementia. Results: Women with VD scored low er than men with VD on 3 tests. However, when controlling for potentia l confounds, the gender difference was maintained only for the semanti c memory task. Women with AD showed a strong trend to perform worse th an men with AD on the test of semantic memory only. No gender differen ces were found among subjects without dementia. Conclusions: Findings support the existence of a semantic memory deficit for women with AD a nd suggest that a similar deficit may exist among women with VD.