Assessing adverse childhood experiences and current symptoms of anxiety and depression may help ease cognitive distress in women who have undergone surgical menopause to reduce cancer risk, new study says.

Scientists including Dr. Neil Epperson of the Anschutz University of Colorado Medical Campus have remotely collected extensive cognitive data from women across the country.. 552 women who carry both BRCA1 and BRCA2 mutations and completed RRSO completed assessments that measured executive function (the cognitive process that allows people to manage information in a planned rather than reactive manner), early life stress exposure, and symptoms.

The results show that adverse childhood experiences (ACE) were associated with more severe symptoms of executive dysfunction and worse performance on cognitive tasks after surgical menopause.. Mood changes, such as anxiety and depressive symptoms, are mediated in part by associations of ACE with subjective and objective measures of executive function.. These findings indicate that assessing a history of childhood adversity and current symptoms of anxiety and depression may help identify women who will experience executive cognitive complaints after surgical menopause..

This study highlights the importance of considering the psychological state during other medical procedures.. “We cannot change the past for women who experienced major childhood problems such as abuse, neglect, divorce, substance abuse, or exposure to domestic violence, but we can identify a patient group that is easily assessed by these ACEs as. “We hope that the assessment of childhood adversity and history of depression and anxiety will become part of the preoperative discussion about risk and benefit between patients and their physicians.”.

“Many women have told me over the years that their doctor did not warn them of the potential brain consequences of undergoing surgical menopause.. While these women may have made the same decision about surgery given its life-saving benefits, they indicated that they were educated about the potential cognitive and emotional effects so they could be prepared and seek treatment more quickly,” Epperson says..

medical-heal. en.