Alzheimer’s Disease: Women Affected More Often than Men
Nearly 4.5 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease (AD) in our country, and more than half of them are women, according to the National Institute on Aging in Bethesda, Md. As the general population continues to age, this number is expected to increase significantly over the next few decades.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, a group of brain disorders that interferes with a person’s ability to carry out daily activities. In AD, areas of the brain change and deteriorate, which causes a decline in cognition and memory functioning. In some patients, the deficits are large enough to get in the way of performing normal, everyday tasks.
There is evidence that AD affects women differently than men. “Many studies of gender differences in cognition have pointed to greater language deficits in women with Alzheimer’s disease as compared to men,” explains Michael S. Rafii, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Memory Disorders Clinic and an attending neurologist at the Shiley-Marcos Alzheimer Disease Research Center at the University of California, San Diego.
Click here to comment on this article.“Naming and word-recognition skills have been reported to be more adversely affected in female patients with AD than in male patients, and the differences have been shown to be sustained over time.”
Notable sex and gender differences in behavior among Alzheimer patients have been observed as well. “Male patients exhibit greater problems than female patients in wandering, abusiveness and social impropriety, particularly in the more advanced stages of the disorder,” Rafii points out. In fact, major tranquilizers and behavior management programs are used more frequently on male patients.
While there is currently no cure for AD, researchers continue to make progress. More drugs are being studied, and researchers have identified several genes associated with the disease. “Recent work has been focused on identifying the molecule that may be causing AD symptoms,” says Rafii. Researchers from the University of Minnesota and Johns Hopkins University “discovered a protein complex in the brain that appears to impair memory.”
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Check the figures. Now 5.3 million Americans have dementia.
by Susan Berg author of Adorable Photographs of Our Baby-Meaningful, Mind-Stimulating Activities and More for the Memory Challenged, Their Loved Ones, and Involved Professionals, a book for those with dementia and an excellent resource for caregivers and healthcare professionals
http://dementiaviews.blogspot.com
I wonder if there is a significant difference when you factor out the fact that women have a longer lifespan? It's still a big issue and I understand the challenges of dealing with this - my grandmother had AD and it affected our whole family.