Current Projects

Functional Status and the Menopausal Transition

Functional Status and the Menopausal Transition is a study of physical functioning and osteoarthritis in age-eligible women. It started as a Michigan site-specific study to the Study of Women Across the Nation (SWAN), the multi-centered, community-based study of women at the mid-life with a focus on menopause.

National health surveys have identified that 15% of persons aged 45-64 had some functional limitation or disability. Of those, 50% of persons identified that the functional limitation or disability developed between the ages of 40-55 years. However, relatively little attention has been directed towards understanding the development of functional limitations (which begins for many women in mid-life) and their relation to the development of chronic diseases. The initial aims were to longitudinally characterize elements of physical functioning in 543 (baseline) middle-aged African-American and Caucasian women during the menopausal transition.

Most studies of functional limitations and osteoarthritis focus on persons over the age of 65; there is little research about the natural history of functional limitations in women aged 40-55. Yet there are more women with functional limitations and disabilities than men. Among the elderly, women live longer, develop more chronic disease and experience more prolonged and severe disability than men. As an example, approximately 25% of women in this study walked at speeds considered functionally inadequate to meet the standards of crossing a street intersection safely. This highlights the importance of understanding the factors during mid-life that establish trajectories of diminished functioning and increased osteoarthritis severity.