Characterization by gender in Alzheimer's disease

Background: Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is an epidemic disorder, age dependent, and more prevalent in women. It is important to have gender differences as a determinant and important clinical feature to keep in mind. This can help clinicians understand and treat AD from this clinical perspective.

Methods: We analyzed San Ignacio's Hospital Memory outpatients Clinic (Bogota, Colombia) Database including all patients assessed from 1997 to 2010, including all sociodemographic, functional, Lawton scale or Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL)), clinical and neuropsychological assessments.

Results: From our database, 860 patients were diagnosed with AD in a mild to moderate stage, 618 (70.9%) were women and 242 (29.1%) men. Women were found to have less educational level (8.22+6.37 vs. 9.83+5.7, p = 0.001) and less MMSE scores (18.63+6.13 vs. 19.79+5.7, p = 0.01). Women had better functionality before the onset of AD (13.03+6.55 IADL vs. 11.89+2.08, p = 0.07), but as the course of AD progresses, this functionality was lost rapidly. Neuropsychologically, verbal semantic and phonological fluency were more preserved in women than men (5,75+3.3 vs. 4.67+2.74, p = 0.02 and 4.18+3.45 vs. 3.35+3.23, p = 0.038).

Conclusions: In our sample women diagnosed with AD had lower MMSE than men, probably associated to a lower educational status and opportunities to study in our culture. Nevertheless, women have a better speech functionality and preserved language components during the course of the disease. These results seemed to be related to their fundamental role as oral transmitters in our Latino-American culture, which relates to survival, child nursing and IADL.