Sexual dysfunction, depression affect cognition of menopausal women

Among menopausal women, severe depression and sexual dysfunction appear to have a negative impact on cognitive performance, as suggested in a study.

The study included 404 women residing in rural areas aged between 40 and 65 years. Researchers assessed the menopausal symptoms and cognitive performance of the women using the Greene Climacteric Scale and Hindi Mini-Mental State Examination scale, respectively.

Compared with those who had mild menopausal symptoms (low total Greene climacteric score), women who were experiencing severe menopausal symptoms (higher total Greene climacteric score) had significantly lower mean scores for several Mini-Mental State Examination scale domains, including orientation (8.11 vs 8.90; p<0.001), registration (2.77 vs 2.91; p<0.001), attention (4.31 vs 4.48; p<0.01), recall (2.26 vs 2.53; p<0.05), and language/visuo-spatial skills (7.13 vs 7.91; p<0.001).

In a multivariate linear regression model controlled for age, marital status, and educational status, severe depression and greater sexual dysfunction emerged as the factors significantly associated with lower Mini-Mental State Examination scores.

A natural phenomenon among women during their midlife, menopause is accompanied by unfavourable physical, physiological, and psychological consequences, according to the researchers. The findings of the present study suggest that the cognitive performance of menopausal women is sensitive to the severity of menopausal symptoms.