Screening for Osteoporosis - Health Channel

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Screening for Osteoporosis |

“Osteoporosis affects so many people and it is a good example of a disease or condition that patients live with without symptoms until, unfortunately, they have their first fracture,” says Dr. Deepa Sharma, Family Medicine Physician at Baptist Health Primary Care.

She points out screening for these kind of conditions is so important, because it is not an invasive test and it can help to understand how fragile the bones are and if they need to treat the bones to keep them healthy.

Transcript

Dr. Sharma again let’s just kind of talk about being screened for osteoporosis and you know why this is important and who might be at risk that’s a great question osteoporosis like you said affects so many people and it is a good example of a disease or condition that patients live with without symptoms until unfortunately they have their first fracture and so screening for these kind of conditions is so important the screening is done by way of a bone density test which is not an invasive test at all it’s simple it are not too uncomfortable and it can help us understand how fragile the bones are and if we need to treat the bones to keep the bones healthy and most importantly to prevent Falls okay yes we know falling I know is another issue people have to worry about especially they get older so let’s again you mentioned what the test is and I know things are guideline but is there kind of a general age that people should consider having their first bone density test and then continuing from there that’s a great question generally women are tested for bone density at age 65 or older unless they have certain risk factors those risk factors can include a family history certain medical conditions certain medications that they may be on or if they’ve already had a fracture before the age of 65 and after the age of 50 and for men generally at age 70 because they do have a little bit more natural bone density as compared with women and it would be sooner for them if they also had risk factors as well

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