Οστεoπόρωση : η σύγχρονη επιδημία και οι κοινωνικοοικονομικές επιπτώσεις της
Osteoporosis : the prevailing epidemic disease and its socioeconomic impacts in the current society

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Οστεοπόρωση -- Οικονομικές απόψεις ; Οστεοπόρωση -- Κοινωνικές απόψεις ; Osteoporosis -- Economic aspects ; Osteoporosis -- Social aspectsAbstract
The improvement of existence conditions and the consistent growth of medical science lead to an enhancement of lifetime expectancy. That is to say, new diseases have recently come up, which in fact were merely unknown in the past and one of them is known as osteoporosis. The main target of this survey is to provide results which will contribute to the existence theory persisting for the aforementioned disease. It is of significant importance to discuss osteoporosis’ socio-economic impacts, which in fact are expected to increase in subsequent years, and how these can be curtailed in the future. Osteoporosis is a disease with adverse impacts mainly to older people despite the fact that it may give its signs to younger people as well. It has to do with the decrease in bone mass’s density level which mainly increases after the age of 50. According to a US survey (2002), the lifetime expectancy in EU will increase in the interval 2025-2050 from 73,2 to 80,5 years old. It has been advocated that approximately 33% of humanity will be above 60 in 2050. If fractures will not be reduced in subsequent years the cost of health expenditure in both internal and external sources will increase by 200% in relation to 2000(from 36,2 to 76,7 billion euros). The factors need to be faced are as follows; the reduced calcium dosage in premature condition, the delayed diagnosis and corresponding treatment and a 10 years period of existence without knowing its presence. It is extremely difficult to forecast the financial and social implications of osteoporosis. According to a public view, the cost of prevention should not exceed the cost of treatment. However, ethical and social issues should be highly considered before the final choice. Furthermore, the psychological impacts associated with osteoporosis are of vital importance given the mediocre way of skeleton function. The prevention of clinical and psychological impacts caused by osteoporosis can be regarded as of huge challenge for the medical world which should be in line with the families and societies’ overall consensus.