Geriatric gynecology: need and spectrum

Background: Geriatric gynaecology deals with gynaecological pathologies essential in post-menopausal women aged 65 years and above. The spectrum of geriatric gynaecological disorders in India differs from those in developed countries as there are no effective screening program for early detection of cancer and the burden of ignorance and taboos. In this study we aim to find the spectrum of gynaecological disorders in geriatric women and establish the need of dedicated geriatric unit.Methods: A cross-sectional comparative study was conducted on menopausal women of age 45 years or above who attended gynecology OPD for general counselling about menopause or treatment of menopausal problems over the period of 6 months duration. All these menopausal women attending OPD during this interval were evaluated on the basis of pretested questionnaire.Results: Out of 234 post-menopausal women who entered the study, 29% women belong to geriatric group. Post-menopausal bleeding due to both malignant and benign causes and pelvic organ prolapse are the major problems in geriatric women whereas somatic complaints like flushing, night sweats are more common in younger menopausal women.Conclusions: Where the medical science has successfully increased the life expectancy, focused approach to geriatric gynecology around us is our responsibility, where female still hesitate to come out. The need for dedicated geriatric gynecology unit in India on urgent basis is emphasized by this study wherein cancers can be screened in early stage and severe lifestyle hampering conditions like pelvic organ prolapse can be treated timely.

Dominance hierarchy and social grooming in female lion-tailed macaques (Macaca silenus) in the Western Ghats, India.

This article reports the structure of dominance and its relationship with social grooming in wild lion-tailed macaque females. The strength of dominance hierarchy was 0.79 on a scale of 0 to 1 indicating a moderate linearity in the ranking system. Dominance scores were converted into an ordinal as well as an interval scale. Grooming scores were also converted into interval scales using standard scores. Grooming received and grooming given correlated positively and negatively respectively with dominance ranks indicating that high ranking females received more and gave less grooming. Grooming was also positively related to encounter rates for dyads of females. More grooming among adjacent ranks, and grooming being more reciprocal, occurred only in the case of dominant females. The grooming patterns, therefore, appeared to be more of despotic than egalitarian nature. While ranking macaques into different Grades of social systems ranging from despotic to egalitarian, Thierry (2004) has placed lion-tailed macaques in Grade 3 corresponding to the 'relaxed' social system. Our results indicate that the grooming and dominance relationships in this species are more despotic, and hence, the Grade for this species requires to be shifted toward 2 or 1.

Hierarchy, kinship and social interaction among Japanese monkeys (Macaca fuscata).

The study reports the relationship between hierarchy, genetic relatedness and social interaction in captive Japanese macaques. Grooming and proximity were found to be positively related to both dominance rank and degrees of relatedness. Ranks also positively correlated with threats while no relationship was observed between genetic relationships and agonistic interactions. The removal of a-male tightened the male hierarchy while the female hierarchy became relatively loose. Affiliative behaviour became more correlated with ranks than degrees of genetic relatedness. In the absence of α-male, the next dominant male avoided involvement in either agonistic or afliliative interactions with reintroduced animals and group females.