Wednesday Bubble: What? When? Memory and Menopause

Posted by Liz on May 29, 2013 in memory/learning | 0 comments

This past weekend I was discussing the issue of my growing forgetfulness with a friend who, like me, appears to be losing her mind at times. Later that day, upon I landing at a local airport, I realized that I had forgotten where I parked my car only two days earlier. To add insult to injury? I had used a parking app so that I could remember. Only, it took a few minutes before I remembered that I had used the app.

Sound familiar?

Memory lapse is common among women as they transition from premenopause to perimenopause to full menopause, and even appears to cross boundaries and cultures. In the years that I’ve been writing Flashfree, I have run across data linking memory loss to stress, hormones and even a decline in gray brain matter. (If you would like to check out these posts, you can find them here.) Apparently, hot flashes have also been shown to be a significant predictor of so-called forgetfulness. In one study in particular, women were found to experience more memory problems and cognitive issues when they experienced more frequent hot flashes and sweats. Additionally the intensity of those flashes were directly correlated to how long memory issues lasted.

This probable link has been teased out recently in a small (68) pool of midlife women who reported having at least 35 hot flashes a week. Importantly, data were not only based on recall but also, on scientific measures of cognitive functioning (ability to remember words after both short and long delays), menopausal symptoms, sleep and positive and negative moods. With regard to memory in particular, the women were scored on how often they forgot, how serious a failing memory was in those situations, current memory in relation to earlier events in their lives (e.g. 5 years ago, 10 years ago) and the frequency with which they used or didn’t use memory aids. They were also asked to rate their current memory.

One of the most interesting findings was the validation that objective memory performance predicted the magnitude of subjective memory, i.e. the women had an accurate idea of how well or poorly their memory was functioning. What’s more, the higher the numbers of self-reported vasomotor symptoms, the more women recalled having issues in the past, which suggests that women with more vasomotor symptoms — more flashes and sweats — experienced cognitive issues longer than women with fewer symptoms. And, the greater the degree of negative mood — depression, anxiety, hostility — the higher the frequency of forgetting, again, confirming that complaints of memory loss during menopause is not, to coin a phrase, all in your head!

We still lack information on how the relationship between what we believe happens to our memory and what can be measured or confirmed changes as we age or across different menopausal stages. However, the data lend credence to claims that memory is changing during menopause, especially in terms of performance on tasks, and that our mood can influence how well we comprehend or judge the severity and seriousness of those lapses.

Feel like you are losing your mind at times? If you are in the throes of the ‘pause, this feeling may not be going away any time soon.