Successful recruitment of elderly community-dwelling subjects for Alzheimer's disease research.

One hundred seventy-four healthy community-dwelling subjects were recruited for a research project investigating Sleep/EEG measures as biological markers for early-stage Alzheimer's Disease (AD). All subjects were age 55 or older. The subjects were divided into four groups: 46 subjects were diagnosed as having mild, uncomplicated AD, 31 had memory problems but did not meet the research criteria for AD, 43 had uncomplicated major depressive disorder, and 54 were normal controls. Male depressives and mild AD subjects were the groups most difficult to recruit. The ratio of initial inquiries from potential subjects to final study participants in all groups combined was 9 to 1. Successful recruiting strategies for each study group are discussed. News announcements and referrals from other AD researchers accounted for the greater number of study participants.