Menopause and Climacteric Syndrome

The word menopause comes from the Greek words: less "month" and pausia "cessation". Therefore, menopause is the final end of menstruation. Usually it occurs around 50 years due to the decline in ovarian hormone production and involves, in addition to the cessation of menstruation, a number of changes and symptoms that women must adapt since menopause is a physiological process and not a disease. Due to increased life expectancy to 80 years in the last two centuries, menopause takes up a third of life.

What is menopause?

We talk about menopause after 12 months since the disappearance of menstruation. The body of the woman is at a stage of adjustment and transition to a new biological pathway that involves the loss of reproductive capacity. Its establishment has evolved character influences all healthy women which can not be defined as an endocrine pathology; therefore it should not be medicalized or treated systematically, except in certain cases.

The average age of onset of menopause in healthy women is around 50 years. It is the result of aging itself, therefore, from this increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, cancer and disorders of bone metabolism and articulate.

Diagnosis of menopause

The clinical evaluation of women at the end of their reproductive precise identification of potential climacteric symptoms and impaired quality of life of the patient. We must also detect different pathologies that manifest at this stage indicating their timely treatment.

To assess the quality of life during this process, called climacteric, consider the changes that occur in the physical, psychological, sexual, social and family area women. Because of this ignorance, often specialists in Gynaecology may confuse what women perceived as more important to their health and quality of life. A scale to measure quality of life, should be a standardized questionnaire that addresses all the areas that make up the concept of quality of life and can be filled by women. A scale for measuring the quality of life should be a standard questionnaire covering all the areas that make up the concept of quality of life, easy to understand and can be filled by women.

Traditionally the assessment of the quality of life in menopausal women has been made using clinical scales intended to provide a numerical quantification that can be applied to evaluate the effectiveness of medical interventions. This is the Kupperman scale.

Cervantes scale exists in Spain, during which the patient fills in an average of 7 minutes, 31 items on: menopause and health, sexuality, psychic level involvement and relationships. Its use also allows to know the number of patients with alternations of their quality of life, to objectively evaluate medical interventions performed.

menopause vs. quality of life

Given that 75% of menopausal women report a deterioration in their quality of life we ​​must ask ourselves what can we do to improve your quality of life? Currently available therapies may improve symptoms presented by the patient. Prior to establishing a therapy, either hormonal or not, should be individualized treatments and make the patient partner in decision-making.

The sintomatotologia during perimenopause is variable in its presentation, intensity and evolution so it is not possible to make a general requirement. Should analyze the pros and cons of each drug or intervention before initiating such therapies. The trend is to evolve towards specialists personalized treatments and to a daily clinical practice to rotate around improving the quality of life of the person. In this regard different objectives to consider establishing treatment:

- Detect the conceptual framework for action in the care of women during menopause.

- Acquire a comprehensive and continuous view of care for climacteric women during all phases of the process, part of a comprehensive system of care.

- Optimize the knowledge of the most common performance assessment and care at each stage of the climacteric for detecting possible risks.

- Identification of etiological factors, pathophysiological based care, with the appearance of possible alterations.

- Improve education, information and advice to women on all aspects of the climacteric.

-Sentar The basis for the development of programs and care plans for comprehensive care for climacteric women.

-Implicar Specialists in management function in hospital care and primary health care.

-To Promote and reinforce positive attitudes to meet current and future in the field of health needs and health organization.