Bone Density Scan & Osteoporosis Screening in Corbin, KY

A bone density test is essentially an x-ray. The x-ray looks at your bone density, particularly of your lumbar spine and your hips, which are the most likely to fracture. It measures your bone density versus a healthy person and gives you a score and tells you how weak your bones are. Osteoporosis is a silent disease.

Osteopenia and osteoporosis are silent. They don't have any symptoms. Bone density tests are one of the most important tests you can do, specifically for women. One in five women who fracture their hip will die within a year.

So it's important for everybody to get screened, especially women, because once you go through menopause, your bones start to decline. Every woman over sixty five should be screened for osteoporosis. Fifty year old women should be screened as well if they have risk factors like smoking, heavy alcohol use, or family history of fractures. If your DEXA scan comes back and shows either osteopenia or osteoporosis, you may need treatment.

All people with osteopenia should be screened with something called a FRAC score, and depending on their fracture risk will determine whether you need treatment or not. Everybody with osteoporosis should be treated. So it's very important to keep a healthy lifestyle, exercise regularly, specifically weight bearing exercise to prevent bone loss, also avoid smoking, and avoid heavy alcohol use, which are all associated with low bone density. Here at Baptist Health Corbin we want to do a bone density test so that we prevent you from having a hip fracture rather than treating the hip fracture after.