Musculoskeletal Research Centre: New Coordinated Applications for Bone Health

2003 Research Unit Award

This multi-disciplinary unit is focused on improving current treatment of fractures, developing and implementing primary and secondary prevention strategies and developing new knowledge about mechanisms underlying bone health and disease. This includes research exploring the role of bone mineral as an important determinant of joint health. The unit’s goal is the development and translation of new knowledge to optimize bone health and minimize the burden of osteoporosis and fracture.

This research unit brings together a series of inter-related research approaches aimed at optimizing bone health and minimizing the burden of osteoporosis and fracture in BC and Canada. The burden is major both in terms of reduced quality of life for those affected and in costs to the health system. In Canada, falls are the number one cause of accidental injury and death in the elderly, and the underlying cause of 90 per cent of hip and wrist fractures. The cost of treatment for hip fractures alone is nearly $1 billion annually.

Based on a multidisciplinary approach that integrates basic science and clinical expertise with community partnerships, this research unit will address one of the province’s most costly health issues through a comprehensive five-point research plan:

• Linking clinical evaluation of bone health with laboratory measures of bone to develop better methods of characterizing bone properties and predicting people’s degree of risk for fractures.
• Identifying specific exercise regimes that will optimize bone mass, structure and strength during growth, at maturity and in old age.
• Improving techniques for enhancing balance and mobility and reducing the frequency of falls and fall-related fractures in high-risk populations.
• Evaluating novel biomaterials, devices and surgical techniques, including minimally invasive surgery with and without computer guidance, for fixing or reconstructing hips following fractures.
• Improving diagnosis and treatment of osteoarthritis by investigating how local changes in bone density and structure due to osteoporosis may contribute to the degeneration of cartilage in joints. (Although associated with the elderly, 60 per cent of osteoarthritis sufferers are of working age, with the disease accounting for two to three times more work-related disability than any other disease.)

Completed award term September 2009.

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