The health behaviour of osteoporosis patients using non-pharmacological treatment : A Literature Review

Abstract

Osteoporosis is still quite an unknown disease in many ways and preventing osteoporosis is cheaper option than treating fractures or the expensive pharmacological treatments. Since osteoporosis is not common, healthcare staff should gain more knowledge in osteoporosis and the non-pharmacological treatment. The aim of the current study was to highlight the behaviors of osteoporosis patients with non-pharmacological treatment. The purpose of this study was to help inform nurses and other medical staff about the behaviors of osteoporosis patients to better serve them. A literature review was the method used in this study. Data was searched and obtained from numerous article databases, such as Cinahl, Academic Search Elite and Duodecim and Terveyskirjasto. A total of twelve articles were reviewed and analyzed. The results indicate that patients have varying experiences that can be placed into several two main categories and four subcategories as follows: physical activity behavior of osteoporosis patients; eating behavior of osteoporosis patients; gender deference in the behavior of osteoporosis patients; and osteoporosis patients’ knowledge and awareness. This study indicate that many factors affect the experiences of patients with osteoporosis such as: cultures, race, ethnicity, gender, previous experiences with physical activity, income, and education level. This is important information for medical professionals to find out the experiences of patients with osteoporosis to better understand them. Along with these experiences there are extrapolations of how staff could increase the positive effect on patients within the results of this study.