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WORLDWIDE ACTION WEEK PUTS BONE AND JOINT PROBLEMS IN THE SPOTLIGHT
October 17, 2005
(DAVIS,Calif.) — October 12-20 marks the fifth annual action week for the “Bone and Joint Decade,” with events and activities around the world highlighting the impacts muscle and skeletal disorders and injuries have on millions of children, adults and the elderly. The Bone and Joint Decade is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the health-related quality of life for people affected by musculoskeletal disorders during the decade of 2000-10.In the United States, experts from around the nation will gather at the National Institutes of Health in Washington, D.C., this week to review the progress made in reducing the growing health burdens associated with such chronic disorders such as osteoporosis and osteoarthritis, as well as lower back pain, spinal disorders, traumatic injuries and deformities in children.
“We are now at the midway point in a worldwide campaign, but we still have a long way to go, ” said Nancy Lane, a professor of medicine and rheumatology at the UC Davis School of Medicine. “The biggest challenges we face involve the need for more public awareness and more research funding to help overcome these debilitating diseases and problems.”
Lane, who was recently named president of the U.S. Bone and Joint Decade effort and director of the UC Davis Center for Healthy Aging, says bone and joint problems are the number one reason for missed workdays, costing an estimated $215 billion per year in this country alone. She noted that muscle and bone-related conditions are also the leading cause of disability in the United States, accounting for more than 131 million patient visits to hospitals and clinics each year.
At this week's meeting in Washington, Lane and others will discuss how to implement the physician and patient education initiatives identified in the U.S. Surgeon General's “Bone Health and Osteoporosis” report published last year (http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/bonehealth/). The report warned that by 2020, half of all American citizens older than age 50 will be at risk for fractures from osteoporosis — the most common form of bone disease — and from low bone mass if action is not taken by those at risk, along with their doctors, health systems and policymakers.
“The report found that 34 million people are at risk for developing osteoporosis,” said Lane. “As many of us know from our own family experiences, something like a hip fracture in a person over the age of 50 can easily lead to a downward spiral of physical health and quality of life. So we have some critical challenges to overcome, which is what the Bone and Joint Decade is all about.”
Lane added that much of the effort at both the national and international levels is on building awareness and promoting prevention, treatment and additional research. In the United States, work is already under way to mandate more detailed musculoskeletal instruction in medical school curriculums around the nation so that the next generation of physicians is well prepared for potential problems.
American health-care representatives and their counterparts around the world also want to attract more scientists into the field of muscle and bone research. They note that finding ways to reduce a joint disease like osteoarthritis — which currently accounts for half of all chronic conditions in persons over the age of 65 — could dramatically lessen both the pain of the disease and its enormous economic costs.
The International Bone and Joint Decade will meet in Ottawa, Canada, later this month. Lane, who represents all the organizations making up the U.S. Bone and Joint Decade, will address the meeting on efforts made in the United States to implement the new curriculum for medical students. That initiative is seen as an important way to better prepare future doctors for the diagnosis and treatment of musculoskeletal diseases.
The Bone and Joint Decade is the umbrella organization involving 60 countries and more than 750 professional medical societies, patient advocacy groups, governments, research institutions and other partners. For more information, visit www.boneandjointdecade.org.