Hormonal Therapy after Menopause Medications - Research Paper Example

Synthetic estrogen and progesterone (or sometimes just the estrogen) are administered in small doses in order to relieve or alleviate symptoms, especially hot flushes (Pathy et al., 2012). However, sufficient medical history is needed before administering HT to menopausal women. A complete physical exam, pap smear, mammography, examination of hormonal levels, cholesterol levels, vitamin D levels and bone density scans, as well as the presence or absence of sexually-transmitted diseases are measured before giving it out to those who suffer from menopausal symptoms (Hawkins, Roberto-Nichols, & Stanley-Haney, 2012).

Symptoms of menopause include loss of elasticity of the vagina and the decrease in blood circulation as well as fatty tissue which results in dryness and itchiness, pain around the urethra, hot flushes and night sweats, as well as decrease in bone density that leads to osteoporosis for some women (Hawkins et al., 2012). Other observed symptoms include dementia and cognitive impairment among older women, as well as cardiovascular diseases due to the loss of elasticity of the blood vessels due to the decrease in the release of estrogen and progesterone in the bloodstream (Pathy et al., 2012). Another likely symptom of menopause is depression, which is also due to the low estrogen levels that circulate in the blood.

Alongside HT, anti-depressant drugs are also administered routinely to women by physicians not only to women who naturally entered menopause but also to women who had a hysterectomy, or “surgical menopause” (Stoppard, 2000). For this report, a study by Zanardi, Rossini, Magri, Malaguti, Colombo and Smeraldi in 2006 about assessing the response to anti-depressants of post-menopausal women undergoing HT as well as those who are not, as well as the possible effects and influence of these anti-depressants to the hormonal levels of these women.

Background of the Study The study by Zanardi et al. (2006) aims to evaluate the response of post-menopausal women to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI’s) and documenting the interactions of SSRI’s with sexual hormones in women undergoing and not undergoing HT. Due to few documentations of post-menopausal women under risk of undergoing depressive episodes, the scant amount of studies concerning the influence of HT in reaction to anti-depressants which end up in ambiguous and bias results, few or incomplete basal assessment of hormonal levels before HT, as well as a lack of studies with a considerable sample size, this study was conceptualized in order to find out if the use of HT would be able to improve the effects of SSRI’s in post-menopausal women.

Also, proving the synergistic action between anti-depressants and hormonal therapy could give hope for women who suffer menopause and depression, as well as their healthcare providers in managing their symptoms. This study is also significant especially to people who specialize in geriatrics, in order for them to be able to assess as well as address the needs of their female patients undergoing menopause, depression or both. Methods of the Study Roughly 200 patients of the Research Center for Mood Disorders in San Raffaele Hospital, Milan were chosen for this study.

Women above 40 years of age, has amenorrhea for least 12 months and were suffering from a major depressive episode were chosen for this study. Those who were excluded were women who had a history of drug or alcohol abuse, anorexia, other