Thyroid disease in patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type.

The authors compared the frequencies of prior thyroid disease, thyroid medication use, and abnormal serum thyroxine levels in 61 patients with dementia of the Alzheimer type (DAT) with those of 38 control subjects. They found that the 33 women with DAT had a 24.2% frequency of prior thyroid disease, comparable with that found in a previous epidemiologic study. The 19 female controls, however, had a similar frequency, failing to support a previously reported association between DAT and thyroid disease.