Diagnosis and management of involutional osteoporosis

Of postmenopausal women, 20-30% will experience symptomatic involutional osteoporosis. Though the cause is still poorly defined, recent information gives the family physician several routes to treat effectively most patients who become symptomatic. Two other responsibilities exist, however: defining occult causes for the porotic process which may be of greater importance than the osteoporosis itself, and attempting to treat patients at risk for future osteoporosis prophylactically. The latter is a task where we have very effective modes of therapy, but we are only just beginning to develop means of defining that populace destined to suffer from future osteoporosis.