Actually, my wife would, but she forgot where she put the damned pole........
Posted on 02/06/2006 1:19:07 AM PST by neverdem
SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE
Women who are approaching menopause and feel their memories are slipping may be right -- but it's not because their memories are becoming impaired with advancing age, a new study finds.
Instead, researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center found that there's a link between the complaints of forgetfulness and the way the brains of middle-aged, stressed women learn or encode new data.
"It feels like a memory problem, but the cause is different. It feels like you don't remember, but that's because you never really 'learned' the information in the first place," said Mark Mapstone, an assistant professor of neurology and co-author of the study presented Friday before the International Neuropsychological Society's meeting in Boston.
Mapstone and co-author Miriam Weber, who both practice at the university's Memory Disorders Clinic, note they have been seeing more middle-aged women who say they're having problems with forgetfulness.
"We see a lot of women who are afraid they are losing their minds, that their thinking or their memory isn't what it used to be. Their big fear is that it's early (onset) Alzheimer's disease," Weber said.
There's been a lot of conflicting information coming from recent studies about the influence of menopause, estrogen changes and memory.
One study of 800 women in 2003 found no evidence that menopause is related to memory loss. At the same time, some studies showed that women getting hormone-replacement therapy after menopause faced a slightly higher risk of developing dementia.
Mapstone and Weber, after looking closely at the cognitive skills of 24 women who had complained of memory problems, found no evidence that such women are on their way toward developing Alzheimer's. Only one woman in the group was actually forgetting things that she once knew or remembered.
But the tests did show that women in the group who complained more about forgetfulness were more likely to have a harder time learning new information.
The researchers explain that the problem of encoding new information is similar to the situation faced by a patient who is told by a doctor that something serious is wrong with him, and then is given a lot of detailed information from the physician. Later, the patient can't recall much of anything the doctor said. But it's not that the information has been forgotten, but rather was never really taken in because the patient was so anxious and worried by the news.
Looks like nobody wants to touch this one with a 10 foot pole.
That's why we shouldn't have babies when we're over 50--we'd forget where we put them.
That must be why all the women I date forget to call me for another one.
Actually, my wife would, but she forgot where she put the damned pole........
This is a ridiculous conclusion. Menopausal "fuzzy thinking" is not about intelligence and does get better but it is almost universal. All my midlife friends complain about it. It is hormonal and most of them will tell you that a balance of natural hormones, including testosterone helps tremendously with this symptom. And, incidentally, many of my friends are going back to "natural hormones" after being scared off by the big study. Susan Sommers has helped us to understand more about ourselves and the world of difference between synthetic and natural hormones. In our home, my husband is as bad or worse than I am concerning complaints of forgetfulness. Men have hormonal fluctuations in midlife as well..This is not just about female discomfort for you guys out there who think you are immune.
LOL!
Well, I didn't have a baby after 50, but I keep asking my husband if we were aware of the dangers of having a baby when I was 35.
Menopause and puberty both hitting at the same time...now that was perfect timing (then my MIL moved in and we were juggling menopause, puberty and senility.)
A 50 year old menopausal woman teaching a 15 year old boy to drive...that was fun!!! He's 17 now, and we both seem to be "over the hump" as far as hormonal fluxes, for which my husband is eternally grateful, LOL.
Motto of the Women Driver's Association!
Unfortunately, she remembers the wrong things at the worst time. And I get in more trouble for it.
Sorry, what were you saying? ;-)
:-) As a woman I reserve the right to remember every detail, even if it's wrong.
My wife never forgets any details when she is angry.
LOL, I was thinking the same thing but forgot what you said.
:-D
24 women... from a Detroit MacDonalds?
Forgot already? Short term memory loss?
LOL! Why are we laughing again???
Oh-h-h-h-h-h-h-h! I never "learned" it! ;-)
Go to the local vitamin store and get DIM capsules.
You can't imagine how much difference it makes with the "fuzzy thinking" problems.
Here's a page on the actuall chemical name/compnents.
http://www.dim.org.uk/
This stuff really helps the menopause 'fog'....:)
[as always, YMMV]
It works wonders for men too.
I haven't a clue and I'm stressin' out.
;-)
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