Osteoporosis and Falls: Problems Overlooked by the Portuguese Medical Community

• Autor(a) principal: Brás da Silva, Vítor; Polo de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação do Hospital Curry Cabral. Lisboa, Portugal
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Outros Autores: Boaventura Barbosa, Sílvia; Polo de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação do Hospital Curry Cabral. Lisboa, Portugal, Rodrigues, Jorge; Polo de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação do Hospital Curry Cabral. Lisboa, Portugal, Amaral Silva, Marta; Polo de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação do Hospital Curry Cabral. Lisboa, Portugal, Miguéns, Ana Catarina; Polo de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação do Hospital Curry Cabral. Lisboa, Portugal, Horta, Luís; Polo de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação do Hospital Curry Cabral. Lisboa, Portugal, Soares Branco, Pedro; Polo de Medicina Física e de Reabilitação do Hospital Curry Cabral. Lisboa, Portugal
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: https://doi.org/10.25759/spmfr.312
• topic: Accidental Falls/economics; Accidental Falls/ prevention & control; Health Care Costs; Osteoporosis/ complications; Osteoporosis, Postmenopausal/complications; Risk Assessment; osteoporose; quedas; fraturas osteoporóticas; prevenção secundária; tratamento

Introduction: The prevalence of osteoporosis keeps rising, causing morbidity and mortality associated with osteoporotic fractures to increase; these are mostly caused by falling, with the fracture of proximal femur having the higher socioeconomic impact. Our aim was to characterize the preventive and therapeutic measures of osteoporosis and falls in inpatients with fracture of the proximal femur.Material and Methods: We carried out a one-year long retrospective cross-sectional study in 65+ year-old women with a recent fracture of the proximal femur, who were admitted to an orthopedic unit; we used a questionnaire specifically developed for this purpose and the individual clinical charts.Results: We evaluated 100 patients with fracture, mostly caused by a fall, indoor, at daytime, and on regular floor; 76% of which reported history of falling and 42% previous history of osteoporotic fracture. Of all the patients that met the criteria for treatment, only 5.3% were undergoing treatment. A statistically significant association was found between the occurrence of falls and (1) osteoporotic fractures and (2) the implementation of fall-preventive measures.Discussion and Conclusion: our results corroborate the importance of falls and osteoporotic fractures in health. We estimate the total direct costs for this sample in 1.34 M€ for the first post-fracture year. If all patients (and not only 5.3%) were to be treated, the consequent fracture risk reduction could cut these costs in, at least, 40%-45%.