 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Cynthia Pearson, National Women's Health Network, 514 Tenth Street, NW, Fourth Floor, Washington, DC 20004, 202-347-1140, cpearson@womenshealthnetwork.org
The experience of making health care decisions about menopause has changed dramatically within the lifespan of one generation of women. Women born in the 1950s and likely to be making health care decisions about menopause right now find themselves confronted with a plethora of information and products. In contrast, women experiencing menopause in the 1950s had little or no publicly available information to turn to. Due to the lack of treatment options for women who experienced troublesome symptoms at the time of menopause, women in the 1950s had almost no decisions to make about health care specific to menopause. Women making health care decisions about menopause now find themselves asked to make many decisions. Some women face decisions relevant to specific complaints. For example, how to decide between hysterectomy or minimally invasive surgery or medical treatment for dysfunctional bleeding? Should a woman leave the ovaries in or not if a hysterectomy is chosen? Can you use home remedies for hot flashes? Herbs & creams? Bioidentical hormones? But many more women find themselves encouraged to treat menopause as a time to initiate screening tests and possibly treatment to lower the risk of developing one of the conditions of aging. What considerations should women take into account when they are encouraged to begin bone density screening at menopause? This presentation will review the various health care decisions women are faced with at the time of menopause, and identify reliable sources of information on which to base these decisions.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Evidence Based Practice, Menopause
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
Organization/institution whose products or services will be discussed: I plan to discuss the wide variety of dietary supplements marketed to menopausal women.
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.