THURSDAY, Feb. 8 (HealthDay News) -- Providing clinic patients with written information about osteoporosis is an effective way for orthopedic surgeons to improve women's knowledge of the disease, according to the results of a study published in the February issue of the Journal of Bone & Joint Surgery.
Jeff E. Schulman, M.D., of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., and colleagues conducted a study of 80 female patients at an outpatient orthopedic clinic, ranging in age from 15 to 73, who were given a simple 11-question quiz to test their knowledge of osteoporosis as well as eliciting information on their calcium intake, smoking and exercise habits and menopausal status. The quiz also asked whether or not they had had a bone mineral density scan.
After an average six months' interval, the women, of whom 54 were premenopausal and 26 were postmenopausal, were followed-up with a repeat of the quiz. The intervention produced better understanding of the disease, the increased risk to women versus men, and the importance of calcium intake. Actual levels of calcium intake and exercise also increased after the intervention.
Current recommendations are for osteoporosis prevention rather than acceptance of the disease as an inevitable consequence of old age. "We contend that orthopedic surgeons can be an integral part of this new paradigm in osteoporosis prevention, diagnosis and treatment by distributing a simple educational handout to their outpatient population," the authors conclude.
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