Depression during menopause
Experiencing a long perimenopausal period (of at least 27 months) has been associated with an increased risk of depression. This increased prevalence of depression in these extended periods of perimenopause seems to be transient. When depression is triggered at menopause, the reasons precipitating and varying severity of your symptoms do not appear to deviate from the patterns that characterize other forms of depression. There is thus some clinical peculiarity that distinguishes it from other life stages.
In fact, depression during menopause is not specifically associated with hormonal changes of menopause physiological but to other factors: surgical menopause, prior depression (the most predictive variable), health status, menstrual problems, social or family stress negative attitudes toward menopause. Among them has been that surgical menopause has been associated with higher rates of depression. It is unclear if only due to sudden hormonal deficit, the psychosocial situation or condition that prompted the intervention.
Some studies have shown that family and social tensions and the associated negative thought, seem more involved in the etiology of depressive disorders concomitant with menopause-hormonal biological change. Much has been written about the syndrome of “empty nest” and “housewife”, suggesting a higher rate of depression among housewives who have been exclusively dedicated to caring for children and who feel the loss of the maternal role coinciding with the age of menopause, in which the children become independent.
However, statistics have not been able to ratify what is probably another myth wrong. Studies show that gender differences in depression not only increasing, but decreasing in this age range. Therapeutic approaches to depression in menopause come to confirm the above statement, and added to controversy over whether menopause should be medicalized or treated as a normal occurrence in their lives.
Estrogen replacement therapy appears to have antidepressant properties, according to studies by several authors, and has been confirmed as effective in improving mood during perimenopause and after surgical menopause. It was also suggested the use of estrogen hormone therapy at menopause accompanied by vasomotor symptoms. Progestogens and androgens have also been used, but has not been sufficiently documented its results. In any case, clinically severe depression is antidepressant medication use combined hormone therapy or not.
For the bibliography, it appears that further studies are necessary to confirm the effectiveness of hormone therapy on depression course after menopause, since, for the moment, it has not been scientifically proven. Perhaps most striking is the scant attention it has received the role of non-pharmacological treatments, although in most cases the psychological treatment and educational approach have been confirmed as more appropriate than hormone therapy.
One example is that studies have been published on how to exercise, especially aerobic type, significantly improves mood in a high percentage of menopausal women, regardless of stage of the process. From various industries suggests an urgent need to educate women and healthcare providers about the process of menopause, so that address more positively the symptoms in perimenopausal and thus prevent reactive depressive symptomatology the many variants that are associated with this process.