The menopausal transition, also termed perimenopause, is a time of significant changes within a middle-age woman’s body. These changes may manifest not only as physical symptoms, but also emotional and cognitive changes. The most common complaint during menopause is of hot flashes and night sweats, which can be grouped together under the title of vasomotor symptoms (VMS). Other aspects of menopause prove to be difficult to endure, like depression and depressive symptoms. The perimenopausal period, plagued by fluctuating hormones, can be a time when middle-age women are more susceptible to depression and depressive symptoms. Menopause is a change in a woman’s body most often occurring in middle adulthood. This change is not like a switch…show more content… To determine the point in which the subjects were presently in during menopause, the STRAW was implemented. The STRAW criteria provided a uniform guideline for researchers to identify which point of menopause the patient was in through the assessment of the subjective information provided by patients about their menstrual cycle. The researchers found that when compared to premenopausal women, there was not a difference in perimenopausal women developing MDD, but the incidence of perimenopausal women experiencing depressive symptoms was greater. Additionally, it was also detected that the depressive symptoms were of a greater severity in the perimenopausal stage in comparison to the premenopausal period. Finally, the analysis of the eleven studies showed that there were indications that the presence of vasomotor symptoms in a perimenopausal woman has a positive correlation to the presence of depressive symptoms (Kruif et al., 2016, p.…show more content… What I had known about menopause was that it was the end of one’s reproductive years and the end of menstruation, which was linked to hormone changes. I now understand that menopause is the gradual progression into the non-reproductive years instead of a sudden change. I was aware that menopause often presented with vasomotor symptoms and hormone changes, but I did not know that depressive symptoms could arise and that an increase of depressive episodes can occur in people with bipolar disorder. Due to the gathering of information concerning the menopausal transition, I am more informed about this change that middle-age women experience and in the future, I will be able to apply this to my practice as a
