Building better bones: A community collaboration

Traditionally, community-based osteoporosis screening has focused on simple heel screenings coupled with short health promotion lectures that provide participants with information to reduce their risk of developing this disease or reduce having current, diagnosed osteoporotic conditions progress. This presentation will highlight a novel community collaboration that tied together a traditional osteoporosis screening with a balance assessment that also could help those screened reduce their risk of accidental falls. This demonstration project will summarize the development of a program that is evidence-based, easy to implement and also involves a simple, follow-up procedure to assess behavior changes. This community collaboration pulled together professional staff from a non-profit rehabilitation clinic, a local health department and small university social science department and led to the successful screening of 150 participants for risk of accidental falls and osteoporosis. Program participants were screened for both osteoporosis and balance. They received a brief lecture that highlighted preventive health measures that each participant could take that would reduce both their risk of falls and their risk of osteoporosis. A 3 to 6-month follow-up assessment was made to determine whether participants had made changes and maintained these changes in their health behaviors. Results showed that a significant proportion of respondents had made improvement in their lifestyles related to reducing the risk for falling and developing osteoporosis. These changes could relate to the participants remaining safely in the community longer.