Menopausal Women Suffer Memory Loss: Study

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University in Chicago claims that during menopause women's ability to remember things weaken. 

Hot flashes are one of most widespread and vexing symptom of menopause that occur in a majority of women during perimenopause.

A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Illinois and Northwestern University in Chicago claims that during menopause women's ability to remember things also weaken.

It is common during menopause for women to complain about their memories slipping. In the new study, researchers have confirmed with objective tests that women who complain about having a hard time remembering things is not just because of mood swings that come along with menopause, they genuinely suffer from memory loss.

Studies conducted in the past have associated hot flashes during menopause to memory issues. But at the same time, certain studies have opposed it stating there is no association between the two as no objective tests have confirmed this.

Researchers conducted a series of eight tests of attention and recall on 68 women in the age group 44-62. They had reported having at least 35 hot flashes a week.   The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire about their menopause symptoms, moods and memory.

On analyzing the answers to the questionnaire, they noticed that those women who complained about having difficulty remembering things actually had a problem. Those women with more hot flashed didn't fare well in the tests and they are the ones who struggled longer with memory problems when compared to women who reported having fewer hot flashes. 

Apart from this, they also noticed that those women who reported having negative emotions fared terribly on the tests in comparison to those with fewer negative emotions.

The details of the study were published in the Journal Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS)