Twenty-four patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) were studied using quantitative spectral analysis of EEG at the time of the diagnosis and 1 year later. In 50% of the patients EEG spectra from the T6-O2 derivation were either normal or mildly abnormal at baseline and did not change at 1 year. In another half of the patients the mean quantitative EEG variables (the alpha and the delta power and the mean frequency) deteriorated significantly when baseline and 1 year values were compared. The patient groups with deteriorating and stable EEGs did not differ in age, sex, age at onset or duration of the disease or clinical severity at baseline or at 1 year. Dementia also progressed significantly in both subgroups of AD patients. We conclude that even if the mean values of quantitative EEG variables analysed from the T6-O2 derivation showed distinct slowing at the time of the AD diagnosis and further deterioration 1 year later, in 50% of these early AD cases there was no EEG alteration or worsening in 1 year follow-up, suggesting heterogeneity of the disease.