Menopause :: Forgetfulness after Menopause

A recent study overruled the idea that menopause actually interfered with memory.

The study, which was published in the journal Neurology, involved 803 women who had not yet reached menopause or were in early stages when the research began.

Once a year, the women were tested on their ability to repeat long strings of numbers backward and to identify pairs of symbols and digits quickly.

Dr. Meyer and his colleagues at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Medical Center in Chicago expected to find the scores dropping. Instead, the scores rose slightly for all of the women in the group, menopausal or not.

Menopause often coincides with other circumstances that bring on stress, like children reaching adolescence and parents reaching old age.

Since stress can lead to minor lapses in memory, women going through menopause may “have a hard time determining whether it is a result of the transition or whether it is related to role stress,” Dr. Meyer said.