With special focus on the Fracture Liaison Programs (FLS) in the Philippines and strategies for their promotion during the COVID-19 pandemic, the UP PGH Dept of Orthopedics celebrated World Osteoporosis Day on October 20, 2020 with a webinar on the theme “Pushing Forward the Fracture Liaison Service Programs during the Pandemic.”
The keynote speakers were Dr. Edward Wang, “Osteoporosis in the Time of the Pandemic” and Dr. Mark Anthony Sandoval, “The Importance of Continuing the FLS in the Outpatient Setting.” Dr. Kassim Javaid, Associate Professor of Metabolic Bone Disease, Oxford University, talked on “Key Performance Indicators for Effective Secondary Fracture Prevention.”
The World Health Organization projects that this year, the number of people aged 60 years and above will outnumber the number of children 5 years and below. And in the Philippines, this age group accounts for 8.2% or 9 million. Over half of the Filipino elderly are at risk for osteoporosis, that if not given immediate attention, severe consequences are bound to happen. Many Filipinos are unaware that the quality of their bones that move, support, and essentially enable the body to perform and maintain specific duties are gradually worsening over time until they suffer from osteoporosis-related fractures.
At the webinar, UP Manila Chancellor Carmencita Padilla stated that with the prevailing pandemic, much of our resources are being funneled to the demands of this health crisis. “UP Manila, as the nation’s health sciences center, will continue to endeavor to address not only this pervading great challenge that is COVID-19; but also ensure the least collateral damage to other health concerns. We are all being called upon to make sure that other medical conditions, like fragility fractures, will not be neglected during this time,” she added.
She noted how the FLS launched in October 2017 has been able to reduce the long wait of hip fracture patients to just five days from previous long waits and is working hard to decrease it to three days. The FLS involves the Orthogeriatric Multidisciplinary Team which is composed of different fields that care for bone diseases and trauma in the elderly; including orthopedics, family and community medicine, rehabilitation medicine, internal medicine, among others.
The World Osteoporosis Day (WOD) is celebrated on October 20 each year to raise global awareness of the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of osteoporosis. WOD aims to make osteoporosis and fracture prevention a global health priority by reaching out to health-care professionals, the media, policymakers, patients, and the public at large.
Cynthia M. Villamor | Published in Healthscape Special COVID-19 Issue No. 18
