PubMed Health⌕ Search

Biomedical subjects

Nancy Fugate Woods

Publications and source records attributed to Nancy Fugate Woods.

9 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2005

Symptoms during the perimenopause: prevalence, severity, trajectory, and significance in women's lives.

This article examines published evidence from longitudinal studies of the menopausal transition that address the following questions: (1) Which symptoms do women report during the perimenopause, and how prevalent are these symptoms as women traverse the menopausal transition? (2) How severe are symptoms and for how long do they persist? (3) To what do women attribute their symptoms, and do their attributions match findings from epidemiologic studies of community-based populations? (4) How significant are these symptoms in women's lives? Data from published longitudinal studies were examined for evidence bearing on each of these questions. Only vasomotor symptoms, vaginal dryness, and sleep disturbance symptoms varied in prevalence significantly across menopausal transition stages and postmenopause in >1 population studied. A minority of women report severe symptoms. Given the limited follow-up data available, it is unclear how long symptoms persist after menopause. Women attribute their symptoms to a variety of biologic and psychosocial factors, and their attributions correspond well to those correlates identified in epidemiologic studies of community-based populations. The significance of symptoms for women's lives remains uncertain. The impact of symptoms during the perimenopause on well-being, role performance, adaptation to demands of daily living, and quality of life warrants additional study. The appraisal of the consequences of perimenopausal symptoms by women from different ethnic groups will be enhanced significantly as a result of the Study of Women's Health Across the Nation (SWAN) and other studies in progress.

Female↗
PubMed2005

Frailty: emergence and consequences in women aged 65 and older in the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study.

OBJECTIVES: To define frailty using simple indicators; to identify risk factors for frailty as targets for prevention; and to investigate the predictive validity of this frailty classification for death, hospitalization, hip fracture, and activity of daily living (ADL) disability. DESIGN: Prospective study, the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study. SETTING: Forty U.S. clinical centers. PARTICIPANTS: Forty thousand six hundred fifty-seven women aged 65 to 79 at baseline. MEASUREMENTS: Components of frailty included self-reported muscle weakness/impaired walking, exhaustion, low physical activity, and unintended weight loss between baseline and 3 years of follow-up. Death, hip fractures, ADL disability, and hospitalizations were ascertained during an average of 5.9 years of follow-up. RESULTS: Baseline frailty was classified in 16.3% of participants, and incident frailty at 3-years was 14.8%. Older age, chronic conditions, smoking, and depressive symptom score were positively associated with incident frailty, whereas income, moderate alcohol use, living alone, and self-reported health were inversely associated. Being underweight, overweight, or obese all carried significantly higher risk of frailty than normal weight. Baseline frailty independently predicted risk of death (hazard ratio (HR)=1.71, 95% confidence interval (CI)=1.48-1.97), hip fracture (HR=1.57, 95% CI=1.11-2.20), ADL disability (odds ratio (OR)=3.15, 95% CI=2.47-4.02), and hospitalizations (OR=1.95, 95% CI=1.72-2.22) after adjustment for demographic characteristics, health behaviors, disability, and comorbid conditions. CONCLUSION: These results support the robustness of the concept of frailty as a geriatric syndrome that predicts several poor outcomes in older women. Underweight, obesity, smoking, and depressive symptoms are strongly associated with the development of frailty and represent important targets for prevention.

Activities of Daily Living↗
PubMed2004

Perimenopause: an update.

The field of perimenopause research is advancing our understanding of the physiological changes related to the menopausal transition and approaches to managing symptoms and preventing disease of advanced age. The impact of the perimenopause on women's health will become evident with the aging of the population.

Aging↗
PubMed2002

Patterns of depressed mood across the menopausal transition: approaches to studying patterns in longitudinal data.

To date many researchers have focused on depression as a discrete episode, attempting to relate its occurrence to a transition in menopausal stage or other factors that might account for its occurrence. Characterizing change over time requires consideration of pattern or trajectory, not merely discrete events. The purposes of this paper are to: 1) to explore methods for intraindividual and interindividual (group) analysis of patterns of depressed mood among midlife women 2) to identify challenges for analytic strategies for understanding depressed mood as it is experienced by midlife women, with special concern for its relationship to the menopausal transition. Data from the Seattle Midlife Women's Health Study were used to illustrate approaches to intraindividual and interindividual analysis of patterns of depressed mood. For most women, menopausal transition was not a time when there was a new episode of depression. Instead, a minority of women showed evidence of becoming depressed once the transition had begun. The most prevalent pattern was that of non-depressed mood across the years of the menopausal transition. Association of several factors with a pattern of depressed mood included life stressors, perceived poor health, and vasomotor symptoms.

Cluster Analysis↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Treatment decision-making by men with localized prostate cancer: the influence of personal factors.

OBJECTIVES: For many men with localized prostate cancer, there is no definite answer or unequivocal choice regarding treatment modality. This high-stakes treatment decision is made in the context of great uncertainty. The purpose of this study is to systematically document meaningful and relevant aspects of treatment decision-making reported by men with localized prostate cancer. METHODS: Focus groups and individual interviews were conducted with 44 men who were within 6 months of a diagnosis of localized prostate cancer. Using content analysis and grounded theory analytic techniques, major aspects and processes of men's treatment decision making are identified and described. RESULTS: The participants reported their experiences beginning with influential personal history factors, followed by detailed descriptions of information gathering and the important influence of expected treatment outcomes and other individuals' cancer histories and/or shared opinions. Twenty of the 44 (45%) participants relied heavily on the influence of another's opinion or history to finalize a decision, yet only 10 of the 44 (22.7%) reported this individual to be their physician. A common process, "making the best choice for me" was explicated. CONCLUSION: Clinicians assume that men are making rational treatment decisions based on reliable information, yet this study documents a different reality. Patient education about medical therapies and the patients' own medical factors is not enough. A clinic visit dialogue that brings personal factors to the conversation along with medical factors can guide a man to making his "best choice" for localized prostate cancer.

Aged↗