Why Alzheimer’s test may miss women

WOMEN’S superior memory for words could be stopping them from being correctly diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, research shows.

Females do better than males in memory tests – even if their brains have deteriorated to the same extent, a study found.

The finding suggests that the female brain has an inbuilt buffer against the early symptoms of Alzheimer’s – so the disease is not spotted until later in its course.

This disparity means women could be missing out on drug treatments as well as support and advice that would help them and their loved ones prepare for the future. Scientists at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York gave more than 1,300 elderly men and women a test of verbal memory.

This involved them trying to recall a list of 15 words just after they heard them, then again half an hour later. A similar memory test is used in the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s.

The volunteers also underwent brain scans that measured the metabolism of the cells in the frontal lobe, the area responsible for memory. A drop in the rate of metabolism occurs in Alzheimer’s patients.

Women with healthy brains did better in the test than healthy men. Females also scored more highly when the scans showed mild and moderate damage.

But by the time the damage was advanced, there was no difference in memory performance between the sexes.

Writing in the journal Neurology, researcher Dr Erin Sundermann said the results suggest women’s superior verbal memory skills may mask the early stages of dementia.