Hi I'm Margaret Martin. Today on MelioGuide we're going to be discussing retirement planning
and your bones. We've all been told to start planning for our retirement in our twenties.
And whether that be for a trip to Europe or golf in Florida, or doing some extra gardening,
but mainly for preventing a hip fracture. Planning in our early twenties becomes very
important. Following a bone healthy diet and regular, vigorous exercise becomes a very
important part of having the type of retirement that you want.
Hip fractures and spinal fractures are much more common than you may think. In Canada
and the US, more women over the age of 70 will suffer a fracture than breast cancer,
stroke and heart disease combined. It is estimated that one in four women and one in eight men
have osteoporosis. Hip fractures are very common in individuals with osteoporosis. Nine
out of ten hip fractures are the result of osteoporosis. Not only are they one of the
most costly type of fractures, in terms of health care dollars, but they're also very
costly in terms of quality of life.
Hip fractures are one of the most devastating of all fractures, in that one in five women
and one in three men die within one year. Fifty percent require ongoing assisted living
in some type of institution. And only a quarter of individuals who suffer hip fractures actually
return to independent living. And having said that, it's usually never to the level of independence
that they had prior to the hip fracture.
Another type of fracture that's very common is spinal fractures. Although less devastating,
they're much more common than hip fractures. Over a five year period of time the incidence
of death is nearly as high as with hip fractures as it is with spinal fractures. And if we
look at the vertebral bodies in the slide on the left, in this x-ray shown here on the
slide, you'll see the height of the vertebral body here. It's a nice height. Where if you
look at vertebral body above, it's about have the size of the vertebral body below.
The other ones that seem a little bit smaller are starting to get compressed, but this is
what we call a spinal fracture. They are also referred to as compression fractures. It's
where the spine starts to compress in on itself because of the level of trabecular bone that
starts to collapse. And although some of these are silent fractures - almost half of them
occur silently - with some of them, you might experience a little bit of back pain, but
then usually that resolves with time.
Some spinal fractures can be very painful, but most spinal fractures, it's not the one
fracture that makes you lose quality of life. It's the recurrence of fracture after fracture
after fracture. So if you have one spinal fracture, the chances of having a second and
third are much higher.
And we'll have a tutorial dedicated to just spinal fractures. So hope this has been helpful,
I hope that you can make good nutrition and bone building exercises part of your lifestyle
so that you can have the type of retirement you're planning for today. That's all for
this session, I'll see you next time on MelioGuide.