Menopause Foggy Brain: Women with Menopausal Symptoms Have Difficulty Focusing

Menopause foggy brain: Women who experienced severe hot flashes did worse on a series of psychological tests than women who had fewer hot flashes, researchers found in a new study.
Menopause Foggy Brain: Women with Menopausal Symptoms Have Difficulty Focusing
Zachary Stieber
5/27/2013
Updated:
7/18/2015

Menopause foggy brain: Women who experienced severe hot flashes did worse on a series of psychological tests than women who had fewer hot flashes, researchers found in a new study.

“If a woman approaching menopause feels she is having memory problems, no one should brush it off or attribute it to a jam-packed schedule,” study researcher Miriam Weber, Ph.D., a neuropsychologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center, said in a statement.

Menopausal symptoms in 75 women between ages 40 and 60 were studied, and the tests included learning new things and focusing on different subjects.

The women with the symptoms had trouble focusing, such as calculating a tip after a meal.

“The good news for women is that there’s proof that their perception about their performance is real,” said Dr. Margery Gass, the executive director for The North American Menopause Society and a gynecologist at Cleveland Clinic, who was not involved in the study, according to Live Science.