It could happen to anyone — slipping on a patch of ice or tumbling off a stepladder. You might hear or feel something snap and know instantly that you're in for at least a few weeks in a cast or worse. But a growing body of evidence suggests that for older adults, broken bones might not be just an unfortunate accident — they could be a warning sign for more significant bone health issues.
According to a commentary published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), any adult middle-aged and older who sustains a bone fracture should have their bone health evaluated and be counseled on maintaining bone health in the future. According to a study published in the same issue of JAMA, postmenopausal women who sustained their first bone fracture faced elevated risk for another fracture later on when compared with women who had no history of fractures. For women whose first fracture was a result of minimal trauma (considered a symptom of fragile bones), the risk of a second fracture increased by 52 percent. Women who received their first fracture from a traumatic accident such as a serious fall were 25 percent more likely to incur a second fracture. Researchers concluded that a first fracture among postmenopausal women was associated with an elevated risk of additional fractures later on.
But despite the known risks of subsequent fractures, few patients are evaluated for bone loss after a fracture. According to the New York Times, a 2015 study of two million Medicare recipients hospitalized after fractures found that among those who sustained hip or spinal fractures, only nine percent were evaluated for bone loss or offered medications to protect bone density.