UK Edition
Women's Alzheimer's going undiagnosed because of better memory for words, study indicates
Women’s superior ability to remember words masks symptoms of early Alzheimer’s and prevents them receiving timely diagnoses, new research suggests.
A study found that females in the first stage of the progressive disease, known as mild cognitive impairment, had better verbal memory than men at an equivalent stage.
Because word memory tests are one of the principal methods for diagnosing Alzheimer’s, the findings indicate that for many women their condition will go undetected.
It means they will be missing a crucial early window to receive treatments that can keep peoples' brains functioning normally for longer.
Researchers at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine recruited 254 people with Alzheimer's disease, 672 people with mild cognitive impairment and 390 people with no thinking or memory problems.
Each participant was read 15 words and then asked to read the list back straight away, and then again 30 minutes later.
Women scored better than men when they had either no, mild or moderate problems with brain metabolism, which occurs with people with Alzheimer’s, although once the participants had more advanced metabolism problems there was no difference between genders.
Erin Sundermann, who led the research, said: “If these results are confirmed, adjusting memory tests to account for the differences between men and women may help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease in women earlier.”
She warned, however, that most of the people involved in the study had all been white and well-educated, meaning the results may not necessarily apply to overall populations.