Menopause natural history, complications and prognosis

Natural History, Complications, and Prognosis

Natural History

• The symptoms of menopause typically develop in the menopausal transition years, which is defined as perimenopause and start with amenorrhea for tow months and more in addition to vasomotor symptoms such as hot flashes, night sweats, palpitations, and migraines. These symptoms continued until reach to postmenopause, in this stage a woman has amenorrhea for on year and vasomotor symptoms in addition to other symptoms such as vaginal atrophy, decreased libido, stress incontinence, frequency, depression and sleep disturbance.
• If untreated vasomotor symptoms after approximately 7.4 years on average, women may progress to develop hypertension, atherosclerosis, and hyperlipidemia.

Complications

• Common complications of menopause include:
  • Cardiovascular Disease/chronic heart disease
  • stroke
  • Osteoporosis More than 250,000 menopausal and postmenopausal women are affected by osteoporosis.

Prognosis

• Generally, the prognosis of menopause is good with treatment and healthy lifestyle include stop smoking and a healthy diet and exercise. In the late post-menopause stage, most menopausal symptoms relieved in most women. but untreated menopause is poor prognosis and 15% increased the risk of causes mortality among women at an early age at menopause and among patients have a high risk to develop complications that are associated with menopause.