Dementia in Oldest-Old Twice as Likely to Affect Women

By Crystal Phend, Staff Writer, MedPage TodayPublished: July 03, 2008Reviewed by Dori F. Zaleznik, MD; Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston.
IRVINE, Calif., July 3 -- The likelihood of women developing dementia as they age into their 90s is significantly greater than it is for men, according to researchers here.
Among women, dementia prevalence nearly doubled every five years after age 90 whereas prevalence reached a plateau among men, reported Maria M. Corrada, Sc.D., of the University of California Irvine, and colleagues online in Neurology.
These findings from one of the largest epidemiological studies in the oldest-old group suggested that the pattern of dementia changes for men late in life. Yet for women the doubling rate was similar to that in previous studies that typically included patients only up through age 85.
Men in Dr. Corrada's study who reached age 90 were about half as likely to have dementia than women in the same age group, which may have been at least partially because of shorter survival both overall and after dementia diagnosis, the researchers said. /.../