Brazilian Women’s Health after 65 Years of Age

This was a retrospective study that included 1,001 Brazilian women cared for in the gynecological geriatric outpatient office of our institution. We report a crosssectional analysis of female adults aged over 65 years, including data on demographics, clinical symptoms such as vasomotor symptoms, associated morbidities, physical examination and sexual intercourse. We used the chi-squared test to assess the data.

Results

The age of the patients on their first clinic visit ranged from65 to 98 years, with a mean age of 68.56 ± 4.47 years; their mean age at the time of natural menopause was 48.76 ± 5.07 years. The most frequent clinical symptoms reported during the analyzed period were hot flashes (n = 188), followed by arthropathy, asthenia, and dry vagina. The most frequent associated morbidities after 65 years of age were systemic arterial hypertension, gastrointestinal disturbance, diabetes mellitus, and depression, among others. The assessment of the bodymass index (BMI) found decreases inBMIwith increased age. At the time of the visit, 78 patients reported sexual intercourse. The majority of women reporting sexual intercourse (89.75%, n = 70) were between 65 and 69 years of age, 8.97% (n = 7) were between 70 and 74 years of age, and only 1.28% (n = 1) of those were aged older than 75 years.

Conclusions

Our findings suggested that vasomotor symptoms can persist after 65 years of age. There was a significant decrease in sexual intercourse with increased age. The cardiovascular disturbances in our study are health concerns in these women.

Keywords:
aging; menopause; vasomotor symptoms; body mass index; sexual intercourse

Clinical symptoms	Age groups (years old)
	Total	65 to 69		70 to 74		75 to 79		80 or more
	n	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
Hot flashes	188	143	76.08	36	19.14	6	3.19	3	1.59
Arthropathy	147	88	59.87	33	22.44	21	14.28	5	3.41
Asthenia	71	57	80.28	10	14.08	2	2.82	2	2.82
Dry vagina	57	49	85.97	7	12.28	1	1.75	–	–
Urinary incontinence	39	25	64.11	7	17.95	4	10.25	3	7.69
Breast pain	20	15	75.00	2	10.00	3	15.00	–	–
Pelvic pain	18	15	83.34	2	11.11	1	5.55	–	–
Depression	14	8	57.15	6	42.85	–	–	–	–
Vertigo	13	6	46.16	4	30.76	3	23.08	–	–
Body pain	12	6	50.00	6	50.00	–	–	–	–
Genital bleeding	9	5	55.56	3	33.33	1	11.11	–	–

Affections	Age groups (years old)
	65 to 69		70 to 74		75 to 79		80 or more		Total		p
	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%	p
Systemic arterial hypertension	353	57.87	90	52.63	39	59.09	18	62.07	500	57.08	0.585
Gastrointestinal disturbance	165	26.96	44	25.88	18	27.69	10	33.33	237	27.02	0.865
Diabetes mellitus	101	16.48	33	19.30	4	6.06	3	10.00	141	16.02	0.068
Depression	94	15.44	28	16.47	11	16.67	3	10.00	136	15.54	0.830
Arthropathy	63	10.31	37	21.51	7	10.61	9	30.00	116	13.20	< 0.01
Heart problems	32	5.27	9	5.29	6	9.09	1	3.33	48	5.50	0.576
Liver diseases	25	4.08	4	2.35	2	3.03	–	–	31	3.53	0.503
Breast cancer	21	3.44	4	2.37	1	1.52	2	6.67	28	3.20	0.819
Stroke	12	1.97	4	2.37	3	4.55	1	3.33	20	2.29	0.927
Deep venous thrombosis	10	1.64	6	3.55	3	4.55	–	–	19	2.17	0.999

Body mass index	Age groups (years old)
	65 to 69		70 to 74		75 or more		Total
	n	%	n	%	n	%	n	%
Thin (< 20)	24	3.61	2	1.10	9	8.41	35	3.67
Normal (20–25)	159	23.91	46	25.27	31	28.97	236	24.74
Overweight (25–30)	245	36.84	83	45.61	48	44.86	376	39.41
Obese (30–35)	161	24.21*	41	22.53	15	14.02	217	22.75
Morbid obesity (> 35)	76	11.43*	10	5.49	4	3.74	90	9.43
Total	665	100.0	182	100.0	107	100.0	954	100.0

Federação Brasileira das Sociedades de Ginecologia e Obstetrícia Av. Brigadeiro Luís Antônio, 3421, sala 903 - Jardim Paulista, 01401-001 São Paulo SP - Brasil, Tel. (55 11) 5573-4919 - Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brazil
E-mail: editorial.office@febrasgo.org.br

Acompanhe os números deste periódico no seu leitor de RSS

[1] Address for correspondence José Maria Soares Júnior, MD, Professor, Gynecology Discipline, Departamento de Obstetrícia e Ginecologia, Hospital das Clínicas, FMUSP, São Paulo, SP, Brazil (e-mail: jsoares415@hotmail.co).