What Does Peri/Menopause Mean to You?

Our friends at VITAL invite real people across our community to tell us what perimenopause and menopause mean for them, so we can to find out its real impact and what matters most to you.

VITAL is led by researcher A/Prof Erin Morton, who became interested in this area when she found herself part of the peri/menopause community a few years ago and discovered how much more there is to find out and improve. As one of 13 million Australians born with ovaries, of whom 3 million are in the most common peri/menopause* age bracket of 40-59 years old, and being in the approximately 1 million who experience symptoms that impact severely on daily life, she wanted to use her research experience to initiate a platform that could contribute to improvements for all.

Perimenopause is officially defined* as the life stage when hormone levels decline and ovaries stop releasing eggs consistently, characterised by ‘regularly irregular’ menstrual cycles fluctuating by at least 7 days per per cycle.  Perimenopause is typically experienced between the ages of 40 and 60, of 4 years average duration leading up to menopause.
Menopause is officially defined* as the singular day 1 year after the final menstrual period, with 'post-menopause' technically describing all that occurs afterwards.  
Generally in the community, all 3 phases of this stage of life - perimenopause, menopause and post-menopause - are often referred to under the single term of ‘menopause’.

Together with the expert clinicians, researchers and community representatives that form the VITAL team, we will use VITAL registry information to design, drive, and discover more about this hidden condition; determine the impact of peri/menopause symptoms and associated risk factors, care pathways and effectiveness, plus what's most relevant and of highest priority to our Australian community. We will use VITAL to streamline authorised, relevant and ethical research and in turn, translate to improved community healthcare outcomes such as community education, clinical advice, informing significant health conditions (cancer, ageing etc) and/or health-system use where appropriate, plus longer-term government and workplace policies to make vital improvements in Australian health outcomes.

Information given to VITAL will be used for the purposes of learning and improving the perimenopause experience.

The extra peri/menopause baseline questions include a basic medical history, perimenopause symptoms (aligned with validated Greene's menopause symptom questionnaire and the Meno-D questionnaire), yours and community priorities, a bit of background on your peri/menopause experience, its impacts and actions, and includes validated questionnaires on your quality of life (EQ5D) and activity +/- work impairment (WPAI) to really understand peri/menopause's potential impact.

Contributing information into this registry does not obligate you to continue to do so - though of course we'd love it if you would. No matter your choice it will not affect your clinical care, and you can withdraw involvement at any time without penalty. 
Contributors automatically get access to summarised VITAL results (eg graphs) and updates about peri/menopause in Australia, but you can unsubscribe at any time.
You can even get involved in other #menopausematters activities if you want. (See VITAL "Voice" within). It is always up to you and we will always welcome your ideas.