Andropause deserves more attention, doctor says

An­dropause re­mains a lit­tle-dis­cussed stage of men’s health de­spite its po­ten­tial im­pact on phys­i­cal health, emo­tion­al well-be­ing, re­la­tion­ships and over­all qual­i­ty of life, ac­cord­ing to Dr Shenelle Ash­ton of the Fam­i­ly Plan­ning As­so­ci­a­tion.

Speak­ing dur­ing an aware­ness ses­sion host­ed by Flow Trinidad as part of its em­ploy­ee well­ness pro­gramme, Dr Ash­ton said greater pub­lic un­der­stand­ing of the con­di­tion could help re­duce stig­ma and en­cour­age men to seek in­for­ma­tion and sup­port when need­ed.

Of­ten re­ferred to as “male menopause”, an­dropause is as­so­ci­at­ed with a grad­ual de­cline in testos­terone lev­els and can af­fect men in dif­fer­ent ways. Dur­ing the ses­sion, Dr Ash­ton ex­plained its symp­toms, treat­ment op­tions and prac­ti­cal lifestyle changes that can help men man­age the con­di­tion while main­tain­ing their over­all health.

“An­dropause is not of­ten dis­cussed open­ly, yet it can af­fect a man’s phys­i­cal health, emo­tion­al well-be­ing, re­la­tion­ships, and over­all qual­i­ty of life. Ses­sions like these are im­por­tant be­cause they help re­duce stig­ma, in­crease aware­ness, and en­cour­age men to seek in­for­ma­tion, ask ques­tions, and ac­cess sup­port when need­ed.”

The aware­ness ses­sion formed part of Flow Trinidad’s ob­ser­vance of Men’s Men­tal Health Month and Fa­ther’s Day, bring­ing em­ploy­ees to­geth­er for an open dis­cus­sion on men’s health and well-be­ing.

Par­tic­i­pants al­so ex­plored top­ics in­clud­ing men­tal health, stress man­age­ment and the im­por­tance of seek­ing help when need­ed.

Em­ploy­ees de­scribed the ses­sion as in­for­ma­tive and rel­e­vant, with many say­ing it pro­vid­ed prac­ti­cal in­for­ma­tion they could ap­ply in their dai­ly lives.

Col­wayne Babb, Man­ag­er, IP & Tech­nol­o­gy Net­work, said, “The ses­sion was eye-open­ing and re­lat­able. It pro­vid­ed prac­ti­cal in­for­ma­tion that we can im­ple­ment in­to our dai­ly rou­tines. The fa­cil­i­ta­tor was al­so very ac­com­mo­dat­ing and pro­vid­ed a com­fort­able en­vi­ron­ment for hon­est con­ver­sa­tions about men’s health.”

An­oth­er par­tic­i­pant said, “I left with a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the changes men can ex­pe­ri­ence and the im­por­tance of pay­ing at­ten­tion to both phys­i­cal and men­tal well-be­ing.”

June is recog­nised in­ter­na­tion­al­ly as Men’s Men­tal Health Month, with or­gan­i­sa­tions us­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to raise aware­ness of is­sues af­fect­ing men’s health and en­cour­age con­ver­sa­tions that sup­port ear­li­er in­ter­ven­tion and bet­ter health out­comes.