COGNITIVE SKILLS ASSOCIATED WITH ESTROGEN REPLACEMENT IN WOMEN WITH ALZHEIMERS-DISEASE

To delineate putative cognitive effects of estrogen in women with Alzh eimer's disease, we compared neuropsychological performances in three groups of patients with clinically diagnosed Alzheimer's disease: wome n receiving estrogen replacement therapy (n = 9), women not receiving replacement therapy (n = 27), and men (n = 26). Untreated women and me n were matched by age, education, and duration of dementia symptoms to women receiving estrogen replacement. We hypothesized that treated wo men would have better scores on neuropsychological tasks. Results show ed that women receiving hormonal therapy performed significantly bette r than other women on some, but not all, tasks; on no task did women r eceiving estrogen score significantly worse. The largest group differe nce was on the Boston Naming Test, a semantic memory task previously s hown to be more impaired in women with Alzheimer's disease than in men with this diagnosis. Of tests considered in a discriminant analysis, the naming task was the only neuropsychological variable to distinguis h between the two women's groups. Mean differences between estrogen-tr eated women and men were small and were not statistically significant. Findings support the hypothesis that estrogen therapy for women with Alzheimer's disease is associated with better cognitive skills and tha t previously noted gender associated differences in Alzheimer's diseas e may reflect a state of acquired estrogen deficiency among women with this disorder. Copyright (C) 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd.