menopause

Foreword

Assessing health at midlife can be both challenging and rewarding.

Menopause is a confluence of age-related, genetic, lifestyle and hormonal factors, resulting in significant health changes and a sharp inflection point of risk. Yet, it also presents a profound opportunity to influence the trajectory of health for years to come.

The aim of a thorough health assessment throughout the menopause transition is to determine current health status, identify those at risk of future health problems, and to promote proactive strategies to women as they age. Because menopause is a life transition, not a disease, a clinician needs to approach women in midlife holistically, considering a broad range of medical disciplines.

Our Menopause Health Assessment Desktop Reference hopes to help our patients identify the changes they are experiencing, and to help them set health goals for the next stage of their lives. It also aims to be a fundamental guide for the clinician, with actionable information to make important therapeutic decisions and to provide strategies to best support their patient’s goals.

We hope that by using the Menopause Health Assessment Desktop Reference you gain the tools to confidently assess the health of your patient in midlife and menopause.

Sincerely,

The 2023 Confident Clinician Menopause Fellowship

• It is commonly assumed that only cis-gendered women experience menopause. As clinicians, it is important to remember that anyone assigned female at birth (AFAB) will experience menopause, whether medically induced or naturally occurring, at some point in their life. This includes cis-women, trans-men, non-binary, and some two-spirited individuals. We primarily use the term “women” throughout this document. This is largely determined by the fact that to the extent of our knowledge at the time of writing, the existing research on menopause is limited to cis-gendered women. There is a notable absence of research on menopause and non cis-gendered individuals who were assigned female at birth contributing to a significant gap in knowledge and inclusive care.