The Doctor José Molina Orosa University Hospital has launched the Fragility Fracture Unit, a new multidisciplinary consultation attached to the Rheumatology service whose primary objective is "to work with patients who have suffered fractures due to osteoporosis".
From Health they explain that the Fracture Unit is "a high-resolution consultation", which offers a secondary prevention program to patients with bone fragility who have suffered vertebral, hip, wrist or humerus fractures, for the most part. The new service, which began operating last week, is made up of a nurse with specific training and a rheumatologist from the hospital, who will see patients referred from Primary Care, Emergency, Traumatology and other specialties.
In relation to the patient profile of the new unit, from Health they detail that it is that of "a person over 50 years of age, who has suffered some fracture due to osteoporosis and with whom we work on secondary prevention to avoid the risk of falls and new fractures, especially in the months and years following the break, since the patient who has had a fracture is much more likely to have another new one".
The professionals of the consultation treat the patient based on a study and various diagnostic tests and monitor them at first in the hospital and later by telephone at three, six and 12 months.
Subsequently, after the study of the patients, in addition to treatment with drugs, in the necessary cases, the nurse develops "an educational and prevention task", promoting "healthy lifestyle habits, improvements in diet or the performance of physical exercise appropriate to each patient." Throughout the process, there is also the support of Primary Care physicians with whom the patient will continue treatment.
The health workers responsible for the consultation have been trained in the Fracture Prevention Unit of the Dr. Negrín University Hospital of Gran Canaria, which was the first of this characteristics that was established in Spain and where doctors from all over the country have been trained to create a unit with similar characteristics in their respective hospitals.
