What are the most common fractures?
There are about 1.5 million fractures due to osteoporosis each year in the United States. About half of those are spine fractures. There are about 250,000 hip fractures a year. Hip fractures are more serious because they tend to affect older people who have other diseases. The mortality after hip fracture may be as high as 20 percent, and about 50 percent of hip fracture survivors are not able to return to fully independent living, and maybe 20 percent will require long-term nursing home care. There are about 250,000 forearm fractures, and then 250,000 at other sites.
Are there any symptoms of osteoporosis?
If you have a wrist or hip fracture, you know it and you'll get medical attention. But with the spine fracture, you may not know it because you might not have pain. Patients with a spine fracture lose height and that can crowd their internal organs causing problems with breathing and digestion. They also develop something called kyphosis, forward curvature of the upper spine. It's also called a dowager's hump.
How is osteoporosis diagnosed?
The only way to identify people who have osteoporosis before they start having fractures is by measuring bone density. Almost 10 years ago, the World Health Organization (WHO) came out with a classification that can be used to diagnose postmenopausal osteoporosis. Osteoporosis for postmenopausal, Caucasian women is defined as a bone density value, or T score, that is at least 2.5 standard deviations or more below the young adult mean. In terms that may be more understandable, those would be values that are 25 percent to 30 percent below the bone density of the average 30-year-old.
Theses values are often misapplied to younger women and men, and even to children.
