STEEP DECLINE

Women With Dementia Deteriorate Faster

Don’t know why.

A new study suggests that women with small memory deficits as they age deteriorate faster than their male counterparts with mild impairments. “All we can say at this point is that there appears to be a faster trajectory for women than men” toward dementia, said a Duke professor who worked on the study. He added that the study, whose primary author was his undergraduate student, does not offer reasons for this disparity or a way to address them. The new study found that this disparity in decline persists over eight years, much longer than the one year previously observed. Women make up two-thirds of dementia patients, in part because they tend to live longer than men.