Osteoporosis
What is Osteoporosis?
Osteoporosis or porous bone is a disease in which bones become fragile and more likely to break due to low bone mass and structural deterioration of bone tissue.Osteoporosis is a major public health threat and i f not prevented or left untreated, it can develop painlessly until a bone breaks and causes a facture. Facture usually occur in the hip, spine, and wrist. A hip fracture almost always requires hospitalization and major surgery. It can cause a person inability to walk and may cause prolonged or permanent disability or even death. Spinal or vertebral fractures can also cause problems such as loss of height, severe back pain, and deformity.
Osteoporosis can occur at any age. Women are four times more likely than men to develop the disease. Women can lose up to 20 percent of their bone mass in the five to seven years following menopause, making them more vulnerable to osteoporosis. It is a know fact that one out of every two women and one in eight men over 50 will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime.
Osteoporosis can be difficult to detect in the beginning because bone loss occurs without symptoms. People may not know that they have osteoporosis until their bones become so weak that a sudden strain or fall causes a fracture. Some of the risk factors that can cause Osteoporosis are, history of fracture after age 50, current low bone mass, advanced age, family history of osteoporosis, estrogen deficiency, abnormal absence of menstrual periods, low lifetime calcium intake, Vitamin D deficiency, low testosterone levels in men, an inactive lifestyle and or excessive use of alcohol.
Osteoporosis Symptoms
Osteoporosis is usually discovered incidentally on roentgenograms; the patient may have been asymptomatic for years. Vertebral collapse, causing a backache with pain that radiates around the trunk, is the most common presenting feature. Any movement or jarring aggravates the backache.In another common pattern, osteoporosis can develop insidiously, with increasing deformity, kyphosis, and loss of height. Sometimes a dowager hump is present. As bones weaken, spontaneous wedge fractures, pathologic fractures of the neck or femur, Colles'fractures after a minor fall, and hip fractures become increasingly common.
ELDER TIP Osteoporosis, usually affecting older people, is a major risk factor in vertebral compression fractures and hip fractures.
Osteoporosis primarily affects the weight-bearing vertebrae. Only when the condition is advanced or severe, as in Cushing's syndrome or hyperthyroidism, do comparable changes occur in the skull, ribs, and long bones.
