Expert Advice

Case Scenarios

What can I do to help my parents protect against falling and fracturing a bone?

• Ensure they have had a proper bone health assessment review by their doctor.
• With your parents review the risk assessments outlined in The Osteoporosis Book. If possible discuss their medications, disease issues such as vision, hearing, balance and their environment for items in the home or routine travels outside the home that might challenging their balance.
• Encourage and support them as they learn about the bone health issues of diet, exercise and the effects of aging and medications on bone. Low bone density alone becomes important as you age. If you are under age 60 in particular you are not facing an emergency but a reason to plan ahead.
• Support their self- management of their health, after all it is their health. Whether to take medication or not needs to be thoroughly reviewed and discussed based on your medical situation. Unfortunately friends and media influenced how we think about medications without knowing our full medical history and risks. By sharing stories about bad situations or medication, yet they have little or no background on how that relates to any personal medical condition they instill a distrust or fear of medications.
• With your parents review their medications, disease issues such as vision, hearing, balance and their environment for items in the home or routine travels outside the home that might challenging their balance.

Once you have suffered an osteoporotic fracture you are at a greater risk of a second fracture. The Osteoporosis Book offers suggestions on information you need to gather while in hospital and follow-up treatments in order to manage your road to recovery and return to the quality of life you expect.