title: Physiotherapeutic approach in early and late post-menopausal Brazilian women.
abstract: To evaluate changes in joints after physiotherapy in post-menopausal women, specifically to identify clinical responses to the measurements of flexibility, functional capacity and joint pain in early and late post-menopausal women at a multi-disciplinary health education programme. A total of 69 women participated in the Integral Program for the Attention to Climacteric Women at the Department of Gynecology - Federal University of Sao Paulo and were sorted into two groups of early (n = 32) and late (n = 37) post-menopause. The average age of menopause was 47.9 ± 5.6 years. The Blatt Kupperman Menopausal Index scores for the early (baseline = 12.8 ± 6.1) and late (baseline = 14.1 ± 7.7) post-menopausal groups after the programme were 8.4 ± 7.1 and 9.4 ± 8.1, respectively. Both groups presented improvements regarding functional capacity (p < 0.01) and complaints of pain (p < 0.001) after the intervention. The group of early post-menopausal women had better flexibility for hip flexion (p < 0.001), and the late post-menopausal group showed greater improvement in shoulder flexion (p < 0.001), extension (p < 0.001) and elbow flexion (p < 0.001). After multi-disciplinary approach, both early and late post-menopausal groups experienced decrease in intensity of climacteric symptoms, reduction in pain intensity and improvement in functional capacity, but the flexibility was different between both the groups.
authors.affiliation: Division of Endocrine Gynecology, Department of Gynecology, Federal University of São Paulo, Paulista School of Medicine (UNIFESP-EPM), Brazil. carolinecalio@hotmail.com
authors.forename: Caroline L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Calio
authors.forename: Isabel Cristina Esposito
authors.initials: IC
authors.lastname: Sorpreso
authors.forename: Mauro
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abi Haidar
authors.forename: Gustavo Arantes Rosa
authors.initials: GA
authors.lastname: Maciel
authors.forename: Edmund C
authors.initials: EC
authors.lastname: Baracat
authors.forename: José Maria
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Soares
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D018771:Arthralgia / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000628:therapy*; D001835:Body Weight / Q000502:physiology; D001938:Brazil / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D008875:Middle Aged; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities; D017698:Postmenopause / Q000502:physiology*; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular / Q000502:physiology*