2019 EULAR points to consider for non-physician health professionals to prevent and manage fragility fractures in adults 50 years or older
EULAR · 2020 · Europe
Source and licence
- Authors
- Jo Adams, Nicky Wilson, Emalie Hurkmans et al.
- Title
- 2019 EULAR points to consider for non-physician health professionals to prevent and manage fragility fractures in adults 50 years or older
- Journal
- Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases, 2020
- Licence
- CC BY 4.0
- Changes
- Verbatim excerpts; formatting adapted
Full text retrieved 2026-10-27 from Europe PMC · PMC7788058
Licence statement of the original publication
This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
This page reproduces excerpts of the original publication; the original is authoritative. It has not been reviewed by a physician, does not state a recommendation of Medelix and does not replace medical advice. The guideline may have been updated since.
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Recommendations
Verbatim, with grade of recommendation or strength of consensus where given.
Discussion
- We recommend that education about osteoporosis, fall and fracture risk assessment, and interventions to prevent and optimally manage fragility fractures, should be a core component of non-physician HP undergraduate training. An interdisciplinary focus through generic competencies for non-physician HPs in fragility fracture prevention and management, may lead to more consistent and effective care, and tackle the personal, societal and economic burden associated with fracture events.
Abstract
Objective: To establish European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) points to consider for non-physician health professionals to prevent and manage fragility fractures in adults 50 years or older.
Methods: Points to consider were developed in accordance with EULAR standard operating procedures for EULAR-endorsed recommendations, led by an international multidisciplinary task force, including patient research partners and different health professionals from 10 European countries. Level of evidence and strength of recommendation were determined for each point to consider, and the mean level of agreement among the task force members was calculated.
Results: Two overarching principles and seven points to consider were formulated based on scientific evidence and the expert opinion of the task force. The two overarching principles focus on shared decisions between patients and non-physician health professionals and involvement of different non-physician health professionals in prevention and management of fragility fractures. Four points to consider relate to prevention: identification of patients at risk of fracture, fall risk evaluation, multicomponent interventions to prevent primary fracture and discouragement of smoking and overuse of alcohol. The remaining three focus on management of fragility fractures: exercise and nutritional interventions, the organisation and coordination of multidisciplinary services for post-fracture models of care and adherence to anti-osteoporosis medicines. The mean level of agreement among the task force for the overarching principles and the points to consider ranged between 8.4 and 9.6.
Conclusion: These first EULAR points to consider for non-physician health professionals to prevent and manage fragility fractures in adults 50 years or older serve to guide healthcare practice and education.
Contents of the original publication
The section headings of the original.
- Introduction
- Methods
- Results
- Point to consider 1: identification of patients at risk of fracture
- Point to consider 2: fall risk evaluation
- Point to consider 3: preventative multicomponent interventions
- Point to consider 4: avoidance of smoking and overuse of alcohol
- Point to consider 5: exercise and nutritional interventions for patients who have experienced a fragility fracture
- Point to consider 6: organisation and coordination of multidisciplinary services
- Point to consider 7: adherence to anti-osteoporosis medicines
- Research and education agenda
- Discussion
- Conclusion
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