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Menopause and Hormone Replacement Therapy: Pharmacists Module 2, 2018
The average life expectancy of women in the Western world is increasing, with more females living into their eighties and nineties. However, the average age at which menopause occurs (51 years in the developed world and a few years earlier elsewhere) has remained the same. This means that large numbers of women will experience more than one-third of their lives in the postmenopausal state.
Menopause is a natural and universal event in the human female lifecycle. Although menopause is not a disease state that requires medication, the symptoms can adversely impact on the quality of life of women. Especially the vasomotor symptoms (hot flushes and night sweats) can be acutely distressing and incapacitating, and hormone replacement therapy (HRT) can play an important role in alleviating these symptoms.
This module focuses on the menopause and HRT, with emphasis on the role of the pharmacist in providing information and advice to women going through this stage in their reproductive life.
