Mental health implications of VMS
Transcript: Addressing the mental health needs of women with VMS
Dr Juliana (Jewel) Kling
All transcripts are created from interview footage and directly reflect the content of the interview at the time. The content is that of the speaker and is not adjusted by Medthority.
Have a guideline that was published in 2019 in the United States by Dr. Pauline Maki, her and Dr. Claudio Soares where they talked about the recommendations for approaching and treating perimenopausal and menopausal depression. And I think probably the first part is just acknowledging that there are mood changes or anxiety symptoms, or other things that we can see during that perimenopause and menopause transition. But then switching gears to talk about treatment, the options would be the typical treatments that we use to treat mood disorders.
So it may be antidepressant medications, maybe cognitive behavioural therapy or other therapies. There are some studies that demonstrate that in late perimenopause and post, or well really just in late perimenopause, that hormone therapy may be beneficial at treating mood disorders. We don't see that same relationship postmenopausally though.
So again, really to recap, acknowledging that these symptoms exist and that treatment is available is the first part, and then going to our toolkit that we typically use to treat mood disorders makes sense. But then for those perimenopausal women, considering hormone therapy could be an option, really fantastic is that there's randomised control data that supports the use of cognitive behavioural therapy specifically to address the vasomotor symptoms of menopause.
In fact, the most recent non-hormone physician statement from the Menopause Society includes cognitive behavioural therapy as a tool that we can use to treat vasomotor symptoms for those women that either cannot use hormone therapy or choose not to use hormone therapy. And I think a lot of, I think about all the women I see that tell me, "Hey, Dr. Kling, I don't want a medication, I don't want hormones." This is a great option because it can both address the symptoms, but it is also not one of those categories that women are looking for, or not looking for, rather. We do have guideline recommendations of how to approach caring for women during perimenopause and menopause as it relates to their mental health needs. So I think that's fantastic. Whether or not that information has translated to clinical practice, into education spaces is really not known. And I suspect that there's still some opportunities there. So while there's is great guidance available, I think there's still some opportunities for those of us that work in menopause, that work in education, to make sure that our clinicians have these tools available so women have access to evidence-based treatments to treat both their vasomotor symptoms, but as well their mental health issues that may accompany their menopause transition.
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