Schizophrenia is one of the most common mental illnesses in our society, affecting up to 1% of the population. There has been an increase in the number of people who are living longer with schizophrenia and people are being diagnosed later in life, with the majority of those later diagnoses being in women. In addition, there is a spike in diagnoses after women go through menopause, suggesting an important role for gonadal steroids in the disease. This paper examined aspects of aging and schizophrenia in the context of hormonal changes in women. With the rising prevalence rate of schizophrenia and the unique challenges that women face while aging with this disease, the idea of estrogen as a therapeutic agent to reduce symptom severity in postmenopausal women should be considered. In addition, we reviewed literature that suggests that estrogen interacts with the dopaminergic system to affect cognition and this should be studied further in older women with schizophrenia. Positive results in these studies have the potential to drastically improve the aging process for postmenopausal women with schizophrenia.
Keywords: Aging; COMT; Dopamine; Estradiol; Menopause; Schizophrenia.
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