Globally life expectancy is increasing and Osteoporosis is becoming a worldwide growing health problem, especially in post-menopausal women. It is a major health problem in India also. Studies show that 61 million people are affected with Osteoporosis in India. Among them 80% are females. The earlier researches show that loss of BMD is more in an early menopausal woman when compared to normal and late menopausal women. Usually, Osteoporosis may not be diagnosed in the early stages as it will not exhibit any prominent symptoms in the early stages. Hence there is an increased risk of morbidity and mortality followed by recurrent falls in elderly aged people.
Pre-screening ladies with early menopause can reduce the rate of osteoporosis and thereby can reduce the risk of fracture and overall socio-economic burden. Traditionally, we use bone mineral density (BMD) to diagnose and monitor osteoporosis and osteopenia. But such diagnostic measures may not be always affordable for the common man. Hence the present study is aimed to develop and validate the Asthidhatukshaya(reduction of bone tissue)assessment questionnaire and to evaluate the questionnaire by assessing the asthikshaya in patients of the post-menopausal stage diagnosed with osteoporosis or osteopenia. The content validity of the questionnaire was good and had strong internal consistency. The clinical utility of the developed questionnaire was also assessed in osteoporotic postmenopausal women. The high content validity and consistency indicate the questionnaire may be used to screen asthikshaya in post-menopausal ladies and thereby can reduce the risk of fracture after assessing in a larger sample
Key words: Asthikshaya, osteoporosis, post-menopausal women, questionnaire, validation
|
