Osteoporosis Diagnosis

Diagnoses of Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a disease that affects the basic skeletal structure of your body. Osteoporosis is characterized by low bone mineral density (BMD). In osteoporosis, the bone becomes too fragile and brittle that they break or fracture very easily even due to a slight pressure like bending. The risk of osteoporosis is maximum at weight bearing bones like hips and spine.

Osteoporosis is a very silent and slow disease and is frequently referred as “the silent thief.” Even after the onset of osteoporosis, you may not experience any signs or symptoms of osteoporosis for many years. You will realize that you are suffering from osteoporosis only after you encounter a fracture. If osteoporosis is diagnosed at such a late stage, leave alone prevention, even the treatment of osteoporosis will become a distant dream.

One must always maintain a proper diet and lifestyle to avoid osteoporosis. Diagnosis of osteoporosis must be carried out at regular intervals to detect the onset of osteoporosis. Today various methods are available to diagnose osteoporosis. Although some methods, like physical symptoms, are easy to diagnose, but the other confirmatory methods should be used before reaching a conclusion.

Osteoporosis Treatment Depends On Osteoporosis Diagnosis

The accuracy of diagnosis is very important because it governs the type of treatment you must undergo. The various types of diagnosing techniques available are:

• Physical signs: The physical signs like stooping and back ache form the preliminary form of diagnosis, but only in case of advanced osteoporosis. These signs do not appear in the initial stages of osteoporosis.
• X-ray: Till a few years back, the X-ray technique was relied upon for the diagnosis of osteoporosis. But this technique is found to be quite insensitive to the disease because approximately 30% loss of the bone tissue goes unnoticed while using this technique. All the more, over-exposed films can indicate demineralized bones, when they are not.
• Bone mineral density testing: This is a very accurate and painless method. It can even tell you that how likely you are to develop osteoporosis in future! Mostly, Dual energy X-ray absorptiometry is used for measuring your bone density. The test is very safe and hassle free. It is nothing but a more sophisticated X-ray technology. The density of your bones is indicated on the basis of the amount of x-rays which pass through your bones.
• Ultrasound: This is a very inexpensive test to diagnose osteoporosis and the machinery involved is portable. Hence, the people living in remote areas can also benefit from this technique. In this technique you are required to immerse your foot in warm water bath. This makes the high frequency sound waves to pass through your heel. Through this simple procedure, ultrasound can detect the density of the bones in your heel. This technique is mostly affective for post menopausal women. Physicians advise to follow this test with BMD if this test turns out to be positive.

Apart from these tests various laboratory tests for calcium and phosphorous may also be employed for accurate diagnosis of osteoporosis.