Caring for women in their post reproductive life: current recommendations on hormone replacement therapy.

Introduction The post reproductive life denotes the period in a woman’s life after she reaches menopause and is a period that brings about many physical as well as psychological changes. Menopause is a diagnosis usually made in retrospect by the absence of menstruation for more than one year. However, ovarian function is known to diminish by late 30s, resulting in complete failure by the early 50s in most women [1]. This period of change in ovarian function is called the menopausal transition. A woman may experience many symptoms during this transition and in the postmenopausal age that ensues. The main symptoms of menopause include vasomotor symptoms, problems related to changes in urogenital epithelium and those due to impaired cognitive functions. The sexual function of women is also affected due to these effects as well as other changes. As the average life expectancy of a woman in Sri Lanka is 79 years and the mean age of menopause is around 51 years nearly one third of a woman’s life will be post menapausal [2].