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INTRODUCTION
Osteoporosis is the most common of human bone disease. It occurs when bone resorption exceeds bone formation. This results in reduced bone strength, poor bone quality, and an increased risk of bone fracture.
The World Health Organization defines osteoporosis as "a disease characterized by low bone mass and microarchitectural deterioration of bone tissue, leading to enhanced bone fragility and consequent increase in fracture risk."
In the United States, over 28 million people are at high risk of developing osteoporosis. Up to 1.5 million fractures a year are attributable to osteoporosis and the total cost of osteoporosis is over $14 billion per year. Over 432,000 hospital admissions, 2.5 million physician visits and 180,000 nursing home admissions are directly attributable to osteoporosis. Osteoporosis related hip fractures are the leading cause of hospital bed utilization and it presents the largest medical and long term care expenses. Women are 4 times more likely to develop the disease than men, yet men are not immune, they will suffer 1/3 of all the hip fractures that occur.
The prevalence of osteoporosis increases as our population increases. The number of Americans 65 and older will increase from 32 million in 1990 to over 51 million by 2020. It is estimated that the "graying of America" could increase the incidence of hip fracture by as much as 280% by the year 2040. This could turn out to be very costly on many levels.
The key to battling what may look like an inevitable rise in osteoporosis related medical costs, is early detection and appropriate protocols and care for the individuals at risk. For the natural practitioner this comes down to offering calcium orotate chelates, natural progesterone, appropriate mineral and vitamin protocols, pH diet education, lifestyle change, etc.
Key to starting in this market is having appropriate assessment technology to discover who is at risk, and to use that technology to monitor that risk on an on-going basis.
Today the state of the art in low cost bone evaluation can be accomplished without x-rays, using completely automated compact ultrasonometers in the office. With a one minute test, a practitioner can get a fracture risk assessment that is comparable to very expensive axial BMD (bone mineral density) x-ray units.
When an at risk client is identified, a complete program can be designed based on the practitioners knowledge of sound, natural protocols, while on-going follow up and easy client monitoring becomes part of the process.
There are two key aspects to taking on an osteoporosis care element to your practice:
1) The opportunity to address a real concern of a growing population base that is beginning to think more naturally themselves, by offering healthy and natural answers to the problem.
2) The opportunity to grow an additional stream of income from initial client testing, follow up testing, and related nutritional counseling and product sales from your outside sources or in-house nutritional pharmacy.
The menu to the left above will give you a chance to review the equipment you will need to start this process, some of the natural protocols you might use in your practice, some technical discussion, and a bit about practice management.
If you find you have an interest in pursuing this further please contact the Biomedx office.
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