Osteoporosis often goes undiagnosed until a bone fractures, and is therefore commonly referred to as “the silent thief”. At this point, the disease is already fairly advanced.
Because loss of bone mass occurs over a number of years, and many people don’t experience symptoms or signs of the disease until it’s too late, early detection of bone loss is critical in preventing osteoporotic fractures.
Osteoporosis Canada recommends combining the results of Bone Mineral Density (BMD) testing with some very important clinical risk factors. This leads to a much better and more accurate method of predicting a person’s risk of fracture. As a result, the treatment of osteoporosis has now shifted from just treating BMD test results to treating people with a high fracture risk.