* This article was first published on The Star on 20 October 2020
IF you have ever fractured a bone, you would understand how painful and disabling it can be. Recovery would be a patient’s number one priority. In addition, patients and their doctors would want to determine whether this is a first sign of osteoporosis.
According to Dr Yeap Swan Sim, a consultant rheumatologist and physician at Subang Jaya Medical Centre, “If patients do have osteoporosis, it puts them at a greater risk for future osteoporotic fractures as once they have had a fracture, the risk of them having another osteoporotic fracture is actually quite high.”
“Many people are unaware of the relationship between a low trauma fracture and osteoporosis. If a patient aged 50 and older has a fracture with low or minimal trauma, there is a good chance that her fracture is related to osteoporosis. An example of a low trauma fracture is one that occurs following a minor fall from a standing height or less,” she says. The most common sites of osteoporotic fractures are in the spine (vertebral), hip and wrist.
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