THE BENEFITS OF HRT: THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGICAL SYMPTOMS AND THE MENOPAUSE
The relationship between psychological symptoms and the menopause is evidently far from straightforward. A complex interplay of factors affects psychological functioning – among them personality, hormone changes, alterations in social and family stresses, the presence or absence of physical illnesses, and perhaps also feelings of loss and grief at entering the final third of life and realising the inevitability of death. To make the situation even less clear, there will always be a small group of women with severe psychiatric illnesses, who just happen to be menopausal at the time their illness comes to prominence.
The medical literature is probably best summarised by stating that whereas there is little evidence for an association between menopause and fully developed psychiatric disease, such as clinical depression, less severe psychological upsets seem to affect some women as they approach menopause or soon afterwards. HRT seems to relieve this state of affairs and to heighten a woman’s sense of wellbeing. Thus many women on HRT experience improvements in their psychological functioning, (concentration improves, confidence is restored, decision-making seems easier) and regain a spring in their step.
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