Osteoporosis: at 60 woman gets nasty lesson in bone health’s importance; therapist explains 12-minute daily routine to restore bone density
- A fall on a beach left Animals Asia charity founder Jill Robinson with a fractured vertebra and a diagnosis of severe osteoporosis
- Known as the silent disease, it is caused by a drop in bone density. Lifestyle changes can build it back up, as can exercise, a doctor and a therapist explain
In October 2018, Jill Robinson, founder and director of Hong Kong-based charity Animals Asia, was on holiday with her family in Mauritius. Up bright and early, she headed to the beach and was dragging a heavy sunbed when she slipped in the sand and fell on her bottom.
“I heard something “pop” and was in agonising pain, I knew I’d broken something,” says Robinson.
Ordinarily, a relatively minor fall (she hadn’t fallen far, and landed on sand) wouldn’t have been a problem, but Robinson, who had just turned 60, did not realise she had developed osteoporosis. This disease occurs when the body loses too much bone, makes too little bone, or both. It is often called the “silent” disease because there are typically no symptoms until a bone breaks or one more vertebrae fracture.
After four days in a Mauritian clinic where the doctors were kind but not necessarily well equipped to deal with spinal injuries – “I was moved around in a sheet,” says Robinson – she was medevacked back to Hong Kong. There, she had to have surgery for the lowest thoracic vertebrae in her spine, the T12.
“It had smashed like a cupcake and there were fragments touching my spinal cord and causing numbness in my legs, so they said there was no alternative,” says Robinson.