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Patients will seek medical help for a broken bone, but if the bone broke with only light trauma, such as a slip, trip, missing a step, or a short fall, the diagnosis is osteoporosis until proven otherwise.

Osteoporosis is a skeletal condition characterized by decreased density of bone that minimizes its strength resulting in fragility enough to cause fractures. This traumatic event may be the first sign of osteoporosis: abnormally porous bone, compressible like a sponge. Osteopenia is a milder form of osteoporosis.

The spine, hips, ribs, and wrists are common areas of bone fractures from osteoporosis although osteoporosis-related fractures can occur in almost any skeletal bone. This treacherous condition progresses without symptoms, and the first evidence of the diagnosis is the fracture. If the screening test proves osteoporosis, treatment is imperative to reverse the process of slow bone loss and prevent future fractures. They can cause disability, deformity and even death.

Since osteoporosis and osteopenia are both mostly asymptomatic conditions, it is important to know who is at risk in order to take preventive measures. The following are factors that increase risk for osteoporosis or osteopenia:

•Female gender, Asian or Caucasian race

•Family history

•Small, thin body frame

•Cigarette smoking

•Increased alcohol consumption

•Low calcium diet

•Sedentary lifestyle

•Gastrointestinal malabsorption where nutrients are poorly absorbed from GI tract

•Low estrogen levels in women and low testosterone levels in men

•Absence of menses

•Overactive thyroid (Graves disease), or too much thyroid hormone as therapy for underactivity

•Medications can cause osteoporosis. Heparin (a blood thinner), Cortisone, Dilantin, Phenobarbital

A routine X-ray may reveal osteoporosis because the bones appear much thinner and less dense than normal bones. However, by the time X-rays can detect osteoporosis, about 30 percent of the bone must be lost. In addition, X-rays do not accurately indicate bone density due to variations in the degree of exposure of the X-ray film. Because of these deficiencies, major medical organizations recommend the early detection of osteoporosis by the use of a dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry scan (DXA) to diagnose osteoporosis. The test measures bone density in the hip and spine by comparing it to the bone density of young adults of the same sex. The test takes only five to 15 minutes to perform, exposes patients to very little radiation (less than one-tenth to one-hundredth of the amount used on a standard chest X-ray), and is quite precise. The bone density of the patient, compared to the average peak bone density of young adults of the same sex and race, known as the “T score,” is a measure of osteoporosis.