Talk to Your Doctor
Talk to your doctor about a fracture risk assessment
Talk to your doctor about a detailed fracture risk assessment to help find your risk of having another fracture.
The assessment may include:
- A bone mineral density (BMD) test
- Talking about possible secondary causes
- If you have conditions such as celiac disease or rheumatoid arthritis
- Or if you take medications that can increase bone loss and increase the risk of breaking a bone.
There may be other tests that your doctor may want you to undergo. There are 2 tools that you and your doctor can use to help decide your risk of a future fracture.
FRAX (Fracture Risk Assessment)
To use the tool, click the image below which will redirect you to the calculation tool.
In addition to femoral neck (hip) BMD, age, sex, fracture history and steroid use, FRAX also takes into account other clinical risk factors to calculate the absolute 10-year risk of a hip fracture or other major osteoporotic fracture (spine, forearm, upper arm).
CAROC (Canadian Association of Radiologists and Osteoporosis Canada)
In 2005, Osteoporosis Canada, in association with the Canadian Association of Radiologists, launched the 10-year absolute fracture risk assessment – CAROC.
In addition to femoral neck (hip) BMD, age, sex, fracture history and steroid use are taken into consideration to determine an individual’s 10-year risk of fracture.
A patient with a fragility fracture and using steroids is at high fracture risk even without the BMD result.
To see the charts that are part of the CAROC tool, click here.
Talk to your doctor about lifestyle changes you should make to reduce your risk of breaking another bone
Your doctor may refer you to other healthcare professionals.