Osteoporosis is a bone disease marked by brittle and fragile bones. In this assi
ID: 3523374 • Letter: O
Question
Osteoporosis is a bone disease marked by brittle and fragile bones. In this assignment, you will explore this disease in more detail using the scenario below.During a recent visit with a female relative, the relative informs you that she has been diagnosed with osteopenia, a precursor to osteoporosis. In order to help your relative, you decided to research this disease further. Osteoporosis is a bone disease marked by brittle and fragile bones. In this assignment, you will explore this disease in more detail using the scenario below.
During a recent visit with a female relative, the relative informs you that she has been diagnosed with osteopenia, a precursor to osteoporosis. In order to help your relative, you decided to research this disease further.
Explanation / Answer
Osteoporosis is a medical condition where one's bone becomes weak and quite delicate due to either the hormonal changes or less calcium intake or vitamin D deficiencies. This might even be a genetic disorder, or might occur due to lack of excercises, history of rheumatoid arthritis in the family. In this condition. there isn't symptoms unless bone starts to break out/fracture. In order to be able to find out if a person suffers fromt he same, an X-ray is performed which will help us know it's bone density. In this condition, the bones become really too fragile and spongy and as a result the bone breaks and fractures itself. This bone disease is more likely in females after menopause. That's because the level of oestrogen decreases to a huge extent. Oestrogen/estrogen is a hormone which is produced by the ovaries and helps in preventing bone loss. Now that menopause has occured, that is no menstruation, level of estrogen reduces drastically leading to loss of bone density eventually. As a result the bones become weak and fragile and frequent fractures might occur.
Osteopenia basically is a condition where the bone density is quite lesser than the normal bone density but not of that level as seen in Osteoporosis. A bone is made up of Calcium, Collagen fibres , proteins , all of which together give a bone it's strength. Bone density peaks when a person is in their late 20s. After the age of around 35 years, bone starts to become weaker. As we age, bone breaks down faster than it builds. If this happens excessively, osteoporosis results.
Osteopenia is a bone loss too but of a level lesser than osteoporosis bone loss, Meaning, in osteopenia the bone loss isn't as severe as the bone loss in osteoporosis.
That means someone with osteopenia is more likely to fracture a bone than someone with a normal bone density but is less likely to fracture a bone than someone with osteoporosis.
In other words, while osteoporosis indicates bone that is more prone to fracture and people with osteoporosis have a higher percentage risk of fracture than osteopenia, because of the much larger number of people with osteopenia there is a greater total number of fractures in these people.
Bone fractures due to osteopenia and osteoporosis are important because they can be very painful, although some spinal (vertebral) fractures are painless.
People with osteopenia should make certain important lifestyle modifications and ensure that their dietary intake of calcium and vitamin D are adequate.
Thin body frame, alcohol consumption, smoking, immobility, lack of excercises, consuming certain medications, less calcium intake, less vit-D consumption to name a few are some causes of the bone density to detoriate.
By maintaining a healthy lifestyle, one can prevent all these shortcomings.
Hope it helps!
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