Why does depression develop in complicated osteoporosis?

Patients And Methods: In a prospective study we observed which female patients developed depression following an acute and painful vertebral fracture. For the statistical evaluation of questionnaires we chose randomly 32 patients with depression (out of 33 patients) aged 51-73, and 32 patients without depression (out of 44 patients) aged 52-70.

The Aim Of The Study: To verify the hypothesis that the patients with more traumatic experience in the anamnesis (Questionnaire No. 1) are more depression prone following the osteoporotic vertebrae fractures and their character features are typical for subjects with higher emotional vulnerability (Questionnaire No. 2).

Statistical Analysis: 1. Questionnaires 1 and 2 were evaluated by two statistical methods: a) automatization of mathematical and statistical estimates and tests based on binomial distribution; b) ADALINE Programme. 2. Assessment of relative risk for developing depression.

Results And Conclusion: We recommend to use questionnaires No. 1 and 2 in female patients with acute painful vertebrae fractures to select patients with the risk of depression development. These patients should be followed more frequently as outpatients and in case of first clinical symptoms of depression should be recommended for special psychiatric care. Early therapy of depression enables to accelerate the mobilisation, rehabilitation and resocialisation of patients, to improve the quality of their lives and to reduce the costs of analgetic treatment of pain, sedatives and rehabilitation (Tab. 10, Fig. 2, Ref. 17).