Results of recent investigations suggest that Alzheimer disease (AD) has a
more deleterious effect on language in women than in men. This intriguing f
inding motivated an analysis of the language performance of probable AD pat
ients, equally divided as to gender, on a variety of language comprehension
and production tests. Cross-sectional data were available for 63 probable
AD subjects and longitudinal data were available for 26. In addition to ana
lysis of covariance used with the cross-sectional data, effect sizes were c
alculated. The longitudinal data were analyzed with repeated-measures analy
ses of covariance. The sum of scores on the orientation items of the Mini-M
ental State Examination was used as the covariate in both analyses. No sign
ificant differences between the performance scores of male and female subje
cts were obtained for either the cross-sectional or longitudinal data. All
effect sizes of gender were relatively small, with female patients outperfo
rming males on most language tests. Results are discussed in the context of
previous findings and comparison of the effect sizes among studies.