This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Cognitive function worse during early menopause
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Cognitive function may differ throughout the menopausal transition, with researchers suggesting that cognition appears to be worse during early menopause.
“Women going through menopausal transition have long complained of cognitive difficulties such as keeping track of information and struggling with mental tasks that would have otherwise been routine,” researcher Miriam Weber, PhD, said in a press release. “This study suggests that these problems not only exist but become most evident in women in the first year following their final menstrual period.”
Weber, a neuropsychologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York, and colleagues examined 117 women aged 40 to 60 years included in the Rochester Investigation of Cognition Across Menopause. Based on criteria from the Stages of Reproductive Aging Workshop +10, patients were separated into late reproductive stage (n=34); early menopausal transition stage (n=28); late menopausal transition stage (n=41); or early postmenopause stage (n=14).
The researchers administered a cognitive battery examining attention, working memory, verbal fluency, motor and visuospatial skills, and memory followed by self-reported questionnaires on depression, anxiety and overall health. Menopausal symptoms and serum levels of estradiol and follicle-stimulating hormone were also measured.
According to data, women in early postmenopause performed worse compared with women in the late reproductive stage on verbal learning (P=.02), verbal memory (P=.02) and fine motor skills (P=.03) composite scores. The researchers also report that women in early postmenopause performed worse compared with women in the late menopausal transition stage in terms of verbal learning (P<.01), verbal memory (P=.01), fine motor skills (P=.03) and attention/working memory (P=.04). The researchers also found that depression, anxiety, sleep disturbance and vasomotor symptoms were not predictive of poor cognition.
Weber and colleagues suggest a larger, longitudinal evaluation of the Rochester Investigation of Cognition Across Menopause cohort.
Disclosure: One of the researchers has received consultant fees from Noven Pharmaceuticals.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts