“Older patients with fractures should be treated for osteoporosis”

New recommendations try to address the gap in osteoporosis diagnosis and treatment

Older patients suffering fractures should be treated for osteoporosis – a disease that causes brittle bones.

A coalition of the world’s top bone health experts, physicians, specialists, and patient advocacy groups have released their clinical recommendations to tackle the public health crisis in the treatment of osteoporosis. It leads to debilitating and often deadly hip and spine fractures caused by the disease.

The recommendations from the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research Secondary Fracture Prevention Initiative Coalition were presented at the ASBMR 2018 Annual Meeting in Montréal, the premier global scientific meeting on bone, mineral and musculoskeletal science.

“But every day, patients hospitalized for hip or spine fractures are not receiving treatments that research shows help prevent a second fracture that could lead to disability or death”

The Coalition’s recommendations are the first to outline the best course of clinical care for women and men, age 65 years or older, with a hip or vertebral (spine) fracture. They were developed in response to growing evidence of an alarming trend of an increase in the expected number of hip fractures and high-risk osteoporosis patients who need treatment but are either not being prescribed appropriate medications, or if prescribed, are simply not taking them.

Recent patient surveys also show that critical information about the connection between osteoporosis and fracture risk is not getting through to patients.

“I think many people are shocked to learn that these conversations are not happening and simple steps not being taken,” said Michael Econs, M.D., ASBMR President and Division Chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and Professor of Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine. “As doctors, it’s our duty to help our patients and their loved ones understand what they can do to prevent another fracture. We must do a better job communicating with them and one another to help rein in this crisis.”

According to a recent survey by the National Osteoporosis Foundation, 96 percent of postmenopausal women who say they have not been diagnosed with osteoporosis and have experienced a fracture or break were not told by their doctor it could be linked to osteoporosis. The survey also found that one-third of women in the survey with a fracture were not referred for follow-up visits by health care providers.

“Heart attack patients don’t leave the hospital without beta blockers to prevent another one. But every day, patients hospitalized for hip or spine fractures are not receiving treatments that research shows help prevent a second fracture that could lead to disability or death,” said Coalition Co-Chair Douglas P. Kiel, M.D., MPH, and past President of ASBMR, who serves as the Director of the Musculoskeletal Research Center at the Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife and a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. “We’ve joined forces to provide a roadmap to ensure all care givers from orthopedists to primary care doctors, and many other health professionals, understand what they need to be doing to prevent fractures and how they can partner with patients to make informed choices about osteoporosis treatment options.”