The Women's Health Initiative Study of Cognitive Aging (WHISCA) is a two-armed, randomized, placebo controlled, clinical trial designed to assess the efficacy of postmenopausal hormone therapy (HT) on age related changes in specific cognitive functions.

WHISCA is an ancillary study to the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) and the WHI Memory Study (WHIMS) and has enrolled 2303 women aged 66 to 84 years who did not meet the criteria for dementia. WHISCA is investigating the effects of hormone therapy on rates of change over time in memory, other aspects of cognition (language, attention, spatial ability), motor function, and mood.

Objectives

• Does HT protect against age-associated memory and cognitive longitudinal decline in women age 65 and older?
• What is the rate of change in memory and other cognitive abilities in women receiving HT compared to women receiving placebo?
• Does the addition of progesterone to HT modify the effects of estrogen on memory and other cognitive abilities?

Inclusion Criteria:

• Enrolled in WHIMS
• At least 65 years old
• Not diagnosed with dementia

Exclusion Criteria:

• Women younger than 65 years of age
• Have dementia
• not enrolled in WHIMS

A subset of women who were enrolled in the Women's Health Initiative Memory Study (WHIMS), who are at least 65 years old and not diagnosed with any type of dementia.

WHISCA will follow guidelines, methods and processes as set forth in the WHI 2015-2020 Data Sharing Plan. Accompanying the limited data sets, substantial electronic documentation will be provided in a standard format that is readable on a variety of platforms. Documentation will include data collection forms, a description of study protocol and procedures, description of all variable re-coding and a list of major study publications. These data will be available to users only under a data-sharing agreement that provides for: a commitment to using the data only for research purposes and not to identify any individual participant; a commitment to securing the data using appropriate computer technology; and a commitment to destroying or returning the data after analyses are completed. Data will be made available for timely release no later than the acceptance for publication of the main findings from the final dataset.