Fracture-Proof Your Bones

Your guide to safe-guard­ing against fragili­ty fractures

After age 50, frac­tured bones present a major health threat for approx­i­mate­ly 50% of men and women (that’s right, men can be impact­ed as well). The cul­prit is a dis­ease called osteo­poro­sis and is char­ac­ter­ized by poor bone quality.

Peo­ple who lose too much bone over time are most at risk because this process results in weak bones that break eas­i­ly from a fall or in more seri­ous cas­es, from minor activ­i­ties like sneez­ing or bend­ing down to tie your shoes. Osteo­poro­sis is referred to as the Silent Epi­dem­ic” because the first symp­tom is often a frac­ture and pri­or to that ini­tial injury, no symp­toms are appar­ent. After one osteo­porot­ic frac­ture, your mobil­i­ty, inde­pen­dence, and life expectan­cy dra­mat­i­cal­ly decline. In addi­tion, the risk of future frac­ture increas­es 200 to 300%. There­fore, once a frac­ture occurs, it is very impor­tant to seek an eval­u­a­tion with a spe­cial­ist in order to iden­ti­fy and treat the cause of the frac­ture and pre­vent future bro­ken bones.

Our providers assist frac­ture-prone patients in reduc­ing risk for sub­se­quent bro­ken bones. If you are age 50 or old­er and have bro­ken your wrist, pelvis, ankle, femur, radius, ulna, humerus, ver­te­brae, tib­ia or fibu­la you may qual­i­fy for care under the Bone Health Clin­ic, which is designed to iden­ti­fy patients at high risk for a sec­ond frac­ture, inves­ti­gate the caus­es and ini­ti­ate treat­ment. This is done under the lead­er­ship of a physi­cian cham­pi­on and an advanced prac­tice provider, called a physi­cian assis­tant, who spe­cial­ize in the eval­u­a­tion and treat­ment of osteo­poro­sis and con­di­tions lead­ing to osteo­poro­sis. Ser­vices such as ours have been shown to improve over­all bone health as well as reduce the risk of sub­se­quent life-threat­en­ing fractures.

Learn more infor­ma­tion about the Bone Health Clin­ic or call 630−456−7631.

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