Women undergoing menopause who feel their memory is letting them down may not be imagining it after all.
A new study has confirmed that around the time of the change many women struggle with memory and other brain skills.
In the past, some studies showed that hot flashes were related to memory problems, and some didn't.
Other studies showed that, even though there was a relationship between hot flashes and what women said about memory problems, objective tests didn't confirm it.
That's why researchers from the University of Illinois and Northwestern University in Chicago gave a battery of eight tests of attention and recall to 68 women age 44 to 62 who had at least 35 hot flashes a week.
The women also completed questionnaires about their menopause symptoms, mood, and memory. Women who said they had trouble with memory really did.
Also, those who had more trouble with hot flashes did worse on the tests, and women with more hot flashes struggled longer with memory problems than women who had fewer hot flashes.
In addition, women who reported more negative emotions did worse on the tests than women who had fewer.
The study was published in Menopause, the journal of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS).
