April 28 virtual presentation to address “bone health after a spinal cord injury”
The spinal cord injury population tends to be at a higher risk for osteoporosis, affecting about 80% of those with a chronic SCI. Osteoporosis is a disease in which the bones become weak and brittle and more likely to break in a fall. With osteoporosis, the normal process of creating new bone cells and reabsorbing the old cells becomes impaired. Bone loss is more rapid than bone growth, leading to the gradual thinning of the bone. It is alarming to see the onset of it within the first few weeks following injury. This decrease in bone mineral density typically levels off around two years after injury but the bone density at this point is about the same as that of a 70-year-old female without SCI. On Wed., April 28th at 7 p.m. PST, Dr. Susan Ott, Professor in the Dept. of Medicine at the University of Washington will provide some advice about things you can do to help your bones as well as discuss some new findings on the horizon that give some hope for the future. Register for this presentation HERE.
Dr. Ott specializes in research and clinical treatments for metabolic bone disease, such as osteoporosis. She believes it is important for patients to understand why spinal cord injury is so harmful to the bones. Fracture risk remains high and more research is needed about how to solve the problem of bone loss in SCI, Here are some of the current understandings of this issue:
Individuals with complete injuries have more bone loss than those with incomplete injuries.
Spasticity is thought to help maintain bone mass after SCI due to muscle pulling on the bone, similar to the effect of weight-bearing.
The longer the time since injury, the greater the bone loss is likely to be.