Janet’s story: Back on the trails after a shock diagnosis
Two years ago, a 63-year-old from Tasman had a simple fall at her home. The accident and the follow up phone call from the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) proved to be life changing.
Janet Taylor looks around for a moment and takes it all in.
The 63-year-old from Mapua, Tasman is in her happy place – out tramping with her friends. She loves the feeling of the pack on her back and connecting with her friends.
“I love everything about tramping to be honest,” Janet says.
“It’s a great adventure, it’s the feeling of freedom, enjoying nature, but there is also a huge sense of accomplishment.”
These days, Janet doesn’t take tramping for granted.
“Following my accident, I’m more mindful about where I place my feet. I take a bit more time. I think about things more, but I’ve also consciously said to myself: ‘I cannot let this stop me. I cannot let it stop me from doing things that I love’.”
In 2022, Janet suddenly fell on the driveway of her home where she fractured her wrist.
She wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary but the next thing she knew she was flat on her bottom and in a world of pain.
“All of a sudden, I realised I was home alone, and I felt very vulnerable.”
Janet suffered a comminuted intra-articular fracture with a joint block in at least three fragments. She had six weeks in a cast and her radius healed well without surgery.
Janet says it was a challenging period.
“I guess I just carried on,” she says. “When you have something like this you just work out different ways of doing things.”
Janet Taylor at Mt Fyffe conservation park in Canterbury.
Rehabilitation led to a shock diagnosis
Janet says the support of ACC throughout her rehabilitation was brilliant.
“I couldn’t work for a period so to have some financial support was helpful,” she says.
“ACC were fantastic – everything that I needed to recover was provided to me.”
During her rehabilitation, Janet received a call from the Fracture Liaison Service (FLS) which proved to be a defining moment. They sent Janet for a bone density scan which revealed she had osteoporosis.
“It was a huge shock,” she says. “When they told me I had osteoporosis, I didn’t expect that to be the outcome.”
But the diagnosis sunk in for Janet and she quickly focused on what she could do.
“The FLS was great, because it gave me lots of information and lots of reassurance about what I was doing – like the hand therapy sessions – and information about other things I could be doing.
“That call was what got me the bone density scan. And the scan gave me the information that helped me to understand I needed to do something proactive for my future.”
In 2014, Osteoporosis New Zealand (ONZ) identified there was a pervasive and persistent care gap for people suffering fragility fractures caused by osteoporosis.
The Fracture Liaison Service aims to bridge that gap and give people who sustain a fragility fracture the support and information they need.
Those who sustain fractures are at double the risk of subsequent fractures compared to their peers who are fracture free, and half of patients who sustain hip fractures break another bone before breaking their hip.
The rising cost of falls and fractures
In 2023, ACC accepted over 173,000 new claims for fall-related injuries from adults aged over 65.
The total cost of fall-related injuries for people aged over 65 in 2023 was $345 million to help people recover.
“We estimate that, by doing nothing to prevent these injuries, the cost of these falls and fractures would reach $720 million by 2035,” says ACC injury prevention leader James Whitaker.
ACC runs the Live Stronger for Longer programme, which aims to sustainably minimise the economic, social and personal burden of falls and fragility fractures.
“Our evidence suggests that, by engaging those most at risk, it’s possible to prevent 30 to 40 per cent of fractures experienced by people aged 50 years and over.”
The Live Stronger for Longer programme has two key areas to improve health outcomes for older adults.
The first intervention, strength and balance, is delivered via community classes or by the Nymbl app and aims to reduce the rate of falls.
The second intervention is the national network of independently accredited world-class Fracture Liaison Services.
Raising awareness and improving outcomes
ACC and ONZ have led a national quality improvement programme that has resulted in universal access to Fracture Liaison Services, with the majority managed within Health NZ - Te Whatu Ora hospital settings.
The primary aim of FLS is to minimise the rate of secondary fragility fractures, which is enabled by benchmarking the care they provide through the Australian and New Zealand Fragility Fracture Registry.
“Falls have a significant impact on a person’s quality of life, especially if it results in a fracture, so we want to do what we can to prevent them from happening in the first place", James says.
Janet encourages anyone who has sustained a fragility fracture to ask their GP about possible referral to the Fracture Liaison Service so they can get further information and make informed decisions.
“I would also say this is not just an older person’s condition," she says.
“I would like to encourage education and raised awareness, for younger people, in their 20s and 30s, so they have knowledge and understanding of osteoporosis and the proactive things they can be doing throughout their life to help reduce the risk of this disease as they age.”
Maintain your balance with Nymbl
To address the impact of these fall-related injuries, we’ve launched a free balance app called Nymbl.
Nymbl is designed to help seniors stay steady on their feet, using dual tasking, combining simple body movements with easy brain games, like trivia, to challenge both the brain and body.
You can download Nymbl via the Google Play or Apple App stores.
More information is available on the Live Stronger for Longer website.
