Arthralgias, bodily aches and pains and somatic complaints in midlife women: etiology, pathophysiology and differential diagnosis

Jeanne Leventhal Alexander, Lorraine Dennerstein, Nancy Fúgate Woods, Nancy Fugate Woods, Uriel Halbreich, Krista Kotz, Gregg Richardson, Alessandra Graziottin, Jeffrey J. Sherman
Expert review of neurotherapeutics · 2007 · vol. 7(sup1) , pp. S15–S26 · doi:10.1586/14737175.7.11s.s15 · PMID:18039063 · W2088876413
Review OA: closed CC0
View on OpenAlex View on PubMed View at publisher
⚙ AI-generated summary by qwen3.7-flash, 2026-09-11 ⓘ

This review discusses the etiology, pathophysiology, and differential diagnosis of arthralgias and somatic pain in midlife women, highlighting associations with menopause and depression.

One-sentence paraphrase of the abstract; not a substitute for reading it. No clinical advice. How this works

Abstract

Somatic symptoms characterized by arthralgias, bodily aches and pains, musculoskeletal pain and joint pain have been investigated in a number of menopause and depression studies. Although depression is one of the most common causes of bodily aches and pains, and arthralgias, these same symptoms are also commonly associated with a natural menopause, surgical menopause and menopause induced by chemotherapy in breast cancer treatment. Somatic symptoms in the absence of definitive medical diagnoses result in these patients receiving various diagnoses and labels--'medically unexplained symptoms', 'worried well', as well as various Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edition) somatoform diagnoses. Osteoarthritis and joint pain increase in prevalence from premenopausal- to menopausal-aged women with hormonal change implicated in their etiology. The current research on the relationships among menopause, depression, nociceptive mechanisms, perception and pain in the distressed midlife patient is discussed. The amelioration and management of pain symptoms in the menopausal and postmenopausal woman, with or without comorbid depression, have been elusive and difficult problems for clinicians. Familiarity with the differential diagnosis, pathophysiology and evidence-based treatment for such patients is crucial to their proper care.

My notes (saved in your browser only)

MeSH descriptors

Mental Disorders Mental Disorders Pain Pain Age Factors Arthralgia Arthralgia Arthralgia Arthralgia Arthralgia Diagnosis, Differential Female Humans Menopause Menopause Menopause Mental Disorders Mental Disorders Mental Disorders Middle Aged

Citation neighborhood (no data yet)

We don't have any in-corpus citations linked to this paper yet. The paper's references may be in our DB but unresolved to ``paper_id`` (resolution happens at ingest when the cited DOI matches a row we already have). Run the cross-source citation reconcile pass to retry.

References (100)

Source provenance

openalex
last seen: 2026-06-10T17:14:06.276822+00:00
pubmed
last seen: 2026-10-08T21:04:54.692383+00:00
unpaywall
last seen: 2026-10-28T06:33:34.531809+00:00
License: CC0 · commercial use OK