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Treatment of Osteoporosis in Long-Term Care

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Osteoporosis in Older Persons

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The major determinants of admission at longterm care institutions (LTCI) include severe disability, poor social/familial support, advanced cognitive impairment, and either sequelae or end stages of chronic diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and heart and renal failure. All these conditions have made elderly patients unable to cope with their life in the community (1), requiring a higher amount of assistance for their activities of daily living. LTCI offer a set of care measures that attempt to improve their patients' quality of life and provide relief to care-givers and families.

Osteoporosis is one of the major health problems among LTC residents, and is considered one of the major “Geriatric Syndromes” because its incidence increases with age, and because it predisposes to the occurrence of fractures and disability. In fact, despite evidence that osteoporosis is highly prevalent in LTCI, it remains under-diagnosed and under-treated (2–4). This is unfortunate because the higher incidence of osteopo-rotic fractures (4) has a significant impact on quality of care and, most importantly, on patient quality of life and mortality. Even if a diagnosis of osteoporosis was made more appropriately in the LTCI, the effectiveness of various treatment approaches used in non-institutionalized seniors have not been established in the LTC population (5). In this chapter, we will review the current considerations that should be made concerning the treatment of osteoporosis in LTCI. A com -prehensive review of the literature will be made, followed by a series of recommendations about the treatment of osteoporosis in LTCI, taking into account the particularities of the LTC population.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Pharmacy, University of Montreal; Clinical Pharmacist in Geriatrics, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Louise Mallet BScPharm, PharmD, CGS (Professor of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy)

Authors
  1. Gustavo Duque MD, PhD
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  2. Louise Mallet BScPharm, PharmD, CGS
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Geriatric Medicine-Jewish General Hospital, Lady Davis Institute for Medical Research, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

    Gustavo Duque

  2. Institute for Aging Research, Hebrew SeniorLife, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Douglas P. Kiel

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© 2009 Springer-Verlag London Limited

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Duque, G., Mallet, L. (2009). Treatment of Osteoporosis in Long-Term Care. In: Duque, G., Kiel, D.P. (eds) Osteoporosis in Older Persons. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-697-1_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-84628-697-1_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-84628-515-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-84628-697-1

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