Non‐pharmacological means to prevent fractures among older adults

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Abstract
Bone fractures affecting elderly people are a true public health burden, because they represent one of the most important causes of long‐standing pain, functional impairment, disability, and death among this population. Compromised bone strength (osteoporosis) and falling, alone, or more frequently in combination, are the two independent and immediate risk factors of elderly people's fractures through which all the other, more distant risk factors, such as aging, inactivity, poor nutrition, smoking, use of alcohol, diseases, medications, functional impairments, and disabilities, operate. Of these two, falling, not osteoporosis, is the strongest single risk factor for a fracture. The most usual occurrence resulting in a fracture of an older adult is a ‘simple’ fall from standing height or less. Although in general terms this type of trauma is mild or moderate only (compared with, for example, motor vehicle collisions), to the specific injury site these traumas are high‐impact injuries often creating forces clearly exceeding the breaking strength of the bone. Therefore, fractures affecting elderly people should be called ‘fall‐induced high‐impact injuries’ instead of the commonly used, partly misleading terms of osteoporotic fractures or minimal‐trauma fractures. Prevention of elderly people's fractures consists of prevention of osteoporosis and of falling, and prevention of fractures using injury‐site protection. Concerning osteoporosis, maximizing peak bone mass and preventing bone loss by regular exercise, calcium, and vitamin D, and, treatment of established osteoporosis with bone‐specific drugs, have a strong scientific basis. In fall prevention, regular strength and balance training, reducing psychotropic medication, and diet supplementation with vitamin D and calcium have been shown to be effective. The multifaceted risk factor‐assessing and modifying interventions have also been successful in preventing falls among the older adults by simultaneously affecting many of the risk factors of falling. Finally, concerning injury‐site protection, padded strong‐shield hip protectors whose effectiveness is scientifically proven seem to be a promising option in preventing hip fractures.