By Gemma Fletcher
Menopause is a difficult time for most women, but for women with
disabilities, there's more to the story. The symptoms and problems that go
along with this stage of life are compounded by the fact that some disabilities
and chronic diseases are affected by menopause in unexpected ways.
Women and Menopause
The most well-known symptom is the hot flashes that most
menopausal women experience, but there are many others: depression and other
emotional disturbances, migraines, palpitations, insomnia, weight fluctuation,
night sweats, dizziness, memory loss, and bladder and urinary problems.
For women with disabilities, there are additional problems to
contend with. Depending on the nature of her disability, a woman may experience
more severe bladder problems, lower tolerance to heat, poor circulation, and
skin problems. For women with chronic diseases, menopause may lead to an
accelerated progress of disease or a worsening of symptoms.
Research on Menopause in Women with Disabilities
While menopause itself is now a fairly well-documented condition,
the effects of menopause on disabilities—and vice versa—are not at all
understood, and there is very little research exploring the intersection of
menopause and disability. In large part, this is simply because women with
disabilities are living longer, as are people in general, which means there are
opportunities for research that haven't previously existed. In medical terms,
there's another reason that can make this kind of research highly complicated:
disabilities take many different forms, from disability caused by injury to
chronic illness and developmental delay. Because of this it has historically
been argued that any research examining how menopause physically interacts with
disability cannot ever be relevant to all disabled women.
Despite the potential benefits, the end result is that there's
very little research that simply explores how menopause impacts the lives of
women with disabilities, and how disabled women feel about menopause. This is
starting to change, however, with a number of studies that explore these very
issues.
Interactions between Menopause and Disabilities
One example is a study carried out in Canada, a collaborative
effort by the British Columbia Center of Excellence for Women's Health, and the
Women's Health in Midlife Project. The authors note that it's difficult to
“distinguish the differential impacts of menopause, aging, and the effects of a
disability”, and further that this problem is one that women themselves
identify when they talk about how menopause has impacted them. Another
important issue is that people with disabilities are disproportionately
affected by poverty and social discrimination, and that these issues contribute
to how women experience menopause and other midlife health events. Nonetheless,
this and other research efforts have made some important contributions to this
field of study.
One example is the way in which some side effects of menopause are
exacerbated by certain disabilities. For example, after menopause, women have
an increased risk of developing osteoporosis. The risk is further increased for
women with certain disabilities, including rheumatoid arthritis, epilepsy, and
multiple sclerosis, because standard treatments for these conditions can
accelerate loss of bone density. Another example of such interactions is that
women with spinal cord injuries have an increased risk of autonomic dysreflexive events, because they can be triggered by the hormone fluctuations
that occur during menopause.
Another area of focus is interactions between menopause and
autoimmune disorders. It has become apparent that many autoimmune disorders are
influenced by estrogen, and some chronic conditions are also affected by
hormone levels. For example, women with epilepsy may experience an increase in
frequency or severity of seizures as they go through menopause, as a result of
a decline in estrogen levels.
Just as important are the emotional and psychological changes that
women go through as they experience menopause, and how these changes often
occur in conjunction with significant physical changes not only due to
menopause, but also to their disability. For many women with disabilities, it's
difficult to distinguish changes that happen as a result of menopause, and
those that are due to their disability, a situation that only highlights the
need for more extensive research.
Resources
Baylor College of Medicine Center for Research on Women with Disabilities. Menopause. Accessed
September 3, 2015.
Claire Z. Kalpakjian and Elisabeth H. Quint. Menopause Research in Women with Spinal Cord Injury:
Challenges and Opportunities. In Topics in Spinal Cord
Injury Rehabilitation, Summer 2009. Accessed September 3, 2015.
Claire Z. Kalpakjian, et al. Menopause Characteristics of Women
with Physical Disabilities. Accessed September 3, 2015.
Lynne Swanson. Surviving the Change: Menopause and Women with Disabilities.
In Abilities Magazine, Spring 1998. Accessed September 3, 2015.
Marina Morrow with the Midlife Health Needs of Women with
Disabilities Advisory Committee. The Challenges of Change: Midlife
Health Needs of Women with Disabilities. Accessed September 3,
2015.
Psych Guides. Living With Menopause. Accessed September 3,
2015.
United Spinal Resource Center. Women's Issues: Menopause. Accessed
September 3, 2015.
About
the Author:
"I've been working as a writer now for the last year or so,
after giving up a career in the city - working in the finance sector. I found
it really stressful and once I became a mom, more difficult to juggle alongside
my desire to see my two children brought up properly - and how I wanted them to
be. In my spare time, I worked as a volunteer for a mental health charity, I'm
someone who has always suffered from high anxiety and depression - working with
people who had the same problems as me also made me reassess and step back. I'm
now a bit happier than I was, and working towards a career that still has
challenges, but allows me more freedom"
2015-10-6leilei
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