Every morning, Barbara Wenzel gets a dose of preventative medicine at the A.G. Rhodes Retirement Home. If not for a disease that quietly eroded her bones for decades, Katherine would still be in her Decatur home of 40 years with Barbara and their cat, Missy. Oh, we'd go to the movies, the beach, wedding receptions, conventions for my work, we'd do everything together. Both women take calcium supplements and Fosamax, a drug that slows down bone loss. It's the first of several osteoporosis-fighting medications that is making a big difference for a generation of women who watched the painful disease rob their mothers of height, health and vitality.
Family history is the biggest risk factor, and the biggest predictor of osteoporosis, experts say.
Under treatment by Dr. Nelson Watts, director of the Emory Clinic Osteoporosis Program, Katherine's bone mass has improved, but the damage to her spine, hip and leg can't be undone. When first X-rayed, Barbara's bones were progressing into osteoporosis. Or this could have been my future, too. In medical terms, osteoporosis is the disease resulting from reduced bone density that leads to increased susceptibility of fractures. In everyday terms, it is your elderly aunt or grandmother who is in the hospital again from a broken hip.