Surgical cataract treatment not only restores eyesight, but also reduces the risk of hip fracture, reports the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The large-scale study by the American Academy of Ophtalmology and the University of California in Los Angeles looked at 400 people. people covered by Medicare coverage in 2002-2009. As it turned out, people whose eyes had cloudy lenses removed and replaced with artificial ones by 16 percent. less often they fell over and suffered fractures of the femoral neck compared to the non-operated ones.
While this is the first study to link eye surgery to bone fracture, it is not difficult to understand that a person who is partially sighted or blind is more likely to fall over. Cataracts are primarily a disease of the elderly whose bones may be weakened by osteoporosis.
Fracture of the femoral neck usually requires surgical fixation. Both the fracture and the operation lead to complications – often very serious. In any case, such a fracture causes significant suffering for the patient and his relatives, and treatment is costly.
According to Dr. Anne L. Coleman, one of the lead authors of the study, it is never too late to undergo cataract surgery. Moreover, the greatest decrease in the number of fractures was recorded among people whose cataracts were removed after the age of 80. (PAP)
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