Gender-Specific Differences in Cognitive Profiles of Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease: Results of the Prospective Dementia Registry Austria (PRODEM-Austria)

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Pusswald, Gisela^{a; *} | Lehrner, Johann^a | Hagmann, Michael^b | Dal-Bianco, Peter^a | Benke, Thomas^c | Marisa Loitfelder, ^f | Marksteiner, Josef^d | Mosbacher, Jochen^f | Ransmayr, Gerhard^e | Sanin, Guenter^c | Schmidt, Reinhold^f | and PRODEM Study Group

Affiliations: [a] Department of Neurology, Medical University of Vienna, Austria | [b] Department of Medical Statistics and Informatics, Medical University of Vienna, Austria | [c] Department of Neurology, Medical University of Innsbruck, Austria | [d] Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Regional Hospital Hall in Tirol, Austria | [e] Department of Neurology, General Hospital Linz, Austria | [f] Department of Neurology, Division of Neurogeriatrics, Medical University of Graz, Austria

Correspondence: [*] Correspondence to: Gisela Pusswald, Medical University of Vienna, Department of Neurology, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, 1090 Vienna, Austria. Tel.: +43140400 57720; gisela.pusswald@meduniwien.ac.at

Abstract: Background: Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is one of the most common age-related diseases in the western world. Gender differences in neuropsychological functions are seldom evaluated in AD. Objective: Recent investigations suggested that gender may be an important modifying factor in the development and progression of AD. We examined gender-specific differences in the pattern of cognitive dysfunction of patients with mild to moderate AD. Methods: We examined 113 males (mean age 78) and 173 females (mean age 80) of the prospective registry on dementia in Austria (PRODEM). We analyzed differences in the cognitive profile between male and female AD patients on the CERAD-Plus test battery. Results: We found gender-related differences in the neuropsychological domains of verbal learning; the women tended to perform worse than men. Controlling for depression, stage and duration of dementia, and the level of education, there was still a significant effect of gender on verbal episodic memory. Conclusion: There is an interaction between gender and cognitive function, most notable in verbal episodic memory; female patients in the early stage of AD performed worse on verbal episodic memory than men. This indicates that the gender-specificities of neuropsychological functions should be given careful consideration in clinical diagnosis of dementia.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, cognitive function, episodic memory, gender differences

DOI: 10.3233/JAD-150188

Journal: Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, vol. 46, no. 3, pp. 631-637, 2015