STOCKHOLM, Sweden, May 18 (UPI) -- A vertebral fracture -- fracture of the spine usually associated with major trauma -- has a devastating impact on quality of life, researchers in Sweden say.
Study leader Fredrik Borgstrom of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm looked at data from four European countries and found patients who were hospitalized after suffering vertebral fractures had a significantly larger quality of life reduction than non-hospitalized patients.
Borgstrom says the researchers need to look at the reasons why.
"The existence of co-morbidities among the hospitalized fracture group and higher severity of fractures are likely reasons," Borgstrom says in a statement.
The findings, published in Osteoporosis International, were also presented in Florence, Italy, at the World Congress on Osteoporosis.
