|
Stroke Doubles Risk of Bone Fractures
Reported August 07, 2009
(Ivanhoe Newswire) -- According to the National Osteoporosis
Foundation, in the United States, about 300,000 people fracture their hip
every year, and about 20 percent of these people die of their fracture
within a year. Stroke patients have about twice the increased risk of
breaking a hip or femur, than those who have not suffered stoke, according
to reports from a recent study.
In the study, a team of Dutch researchers looked at 6,763 patients who had a
hip or femur fracture and compared them to 26,341 people who have not
suffered from fractures. Age, gender, and location were all taken into
consideration.
In general, stroke patients were twice as likely to have a bone fracture,
with an even higher risk in women. In addition, the more recent the stroke
(first three months), the risk was more than three times higher than those
who had not suffered a stroke. Surprisingly, the study also found stroke
survivors who were considered younger, 70 years of age and below, were at
the highest risk for a bone fracture.
"Our findings imply that it is important to conduct fracture risk assessment
immediately after a patient is hospitalized for stroke," Frank de Vries,
Ph.D., senior author of the study and assistant professor of
pharmacoepidemiology at the Utrecht University in Utrecht, the Netherlands
was quoted as saying. "Fall prevention programs, bone mineral density
measurements and medicines to strengthen bones may be necessary to minimize
hip fractures in the elderly both during and after stroke rehabilitation."
SOURCE: Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association |
