Background: Fragility fractures are a major burden for health and social care in elderly people. In order to identify earlier the "frail elders", new concepts of "dysmobility syndrome" and skeletal muscle function deficit (SMFD), including sarcopenia, osteoporosis, obesity, and mobility limitation, leading to a higher risk of fractures, have been recently introduced. There are very few studies investigating the association between fragility fractures and both the dysmobility syndrome and the SMFD.
Aims: The objective of our study is to investigate the role of previous fragility fractures as a risk factor in determining the dysmobility syndrome and/or the SMFD in post-menopausal women.
Methods: In this case-control study, we retrospectively examined data from the medical records of post-menopausal women aged 50 or older. We divided the study population in two groups. The first group includes women with a previous fragility fracture (cases) and the other group includes women without any previous osteoporotic fracture (controls). We identified the subjects with "dysmobility syndrome", "dynapenic SMFD", "sarcopenic SMFD", and "mixed SMFD" in both groups. Data collected refer to a 6-month period.
Results: We retrieved data of 121 post-menopausal women, 77 (63.64%) had already sustained a fragility fracture at any site (cases). The risk for dysmobility syndrome was significantly higher (adjusted OR for age and serum 25-OH vitamin D3 of 2.46) in the cases compared with the controls.
Discussion and conclusions: An early diagnosis of conditions limiting mobility, including dysmobility syndrome, might be useful to identify, among patients with osteoporotic fractures, those who might have a higher risk of a new fragility fracture.
Keywords: Dysmobility syndrome; Fragility fractures; Osteoporosis; Sarcopenia; Skeletal muscle function deficit.