Dr. Devendra Dave

An average person experiences two fractures during his or her lifetime and same holds true for joint related injuries. The severity of this condition depends on a number of factors, ranging from the forces responsible for injury and location to the damage done to the nearby tissues and bones.

How age plays a role in your chances of getting a fracture?

Your risk and severity of developing a fracture, depends, to a certain extent on your age.

A very common occurrence during childhood is crippling joint related injuries, the fractures that you tend to have during this time are generally less complex than the broken bone instances that you stand to experience when you enter adulthood.

With time, your bones become fragile and you become prone to broken bones sustained from falls, which you wouldn't when you were young. Furthermore, as you step into your 50th year, you can get struck by the bone condition osteoporosis, a leading cause of bone fractures during this time. For women, menopause makes them more susceptible to osteoporosis (as infrequent periods and hormonal changes at this time lead to loss of bone mass) and subsequently broken bones.

Preventing crippling joint injuries need many steps in younger generation known as prehab especially for sporting population and adult population involved in day to day activities requiring your body getting subjected to physical stress.

Simple steps to get your joints back to normal in case you do get into injuries.

• Having a calcium and vitamin d rich diet to strengthen bones
• Exercising to strengthen bone and muscle health as well as your balance
• Taking relevant medicines to make your bones strong
• Going for timely bone mineral density test to determine the health of your bone
• Exposing yourself to the sun for about 20 minutes everyday
• Having a requisite calcium intake of 1000 mg and 1200 mg for pre- and postmenopausal women respectively
• Preventing a fracture by modification in your household furniture, extra clothings, sometimes addition of simple orthotic devices, improving your muscle reaction time etc go in long way to help prevent falls.