Your great-aunt Mary, who is 80 years old stepped awkwardly off a stool while trying to replace a jar on the top shelf and twisted her leg at the hip. She felt a sharp pain in her hip and after collapsing to the floor found she could no longer stand. She was taken to the ER where an x-ray showed that the neck of her femur was fractured.
1. What organ(s) is (are) involved?
2. Classify the fracture. a. Complete or Incomplete b. Open or Closed c. Displaced or Non-displaced d. Transverse, Oblique, or Linear e. Simple or Compound
3. Describe the normal tissue at this location? What specific types of cells produce the normal microanatomy of the tissue?
4. Describe the periosteum and endosteum involved? How do they affect maintenance and repair of the bone Surgery was necessary to replace the head of the femur and a biopsy of the bone tissue indicated that there were no cancerous or tumor cells present. Pins were place in the affected bone. Healing progressed slowly but as expected. 5. List and describe the stages of bone healing. The x-ray images also revealed reduced bone mass in the head and neck regions of the injured femur as well as other long bones of the body and the vertebrae What is the significance of your great-aunt’s age and gender?
6. What normally happens to the microanatomy of the specific tissue you identified as it ages?
7. What age-related alterations in the activities of the cells you identified cause this change in the microanatomy? 8. What is the significance of your great-aunt being a woman?
9. What disease caused the abnormal anatomical symptoms and led to the fracture?
10. What are the typical aspects of this disease? Explain why the bone mass is reduced. Are dense bone and spongy bone affected equally? The orthopedic surgeon suggests a new therapy for your great-aunt’s condition that relies upon the administration of the hormone calcitonin. Your relatives want to understand how this hormone works.
11. What is Calcitonin? Where is it secreted from? Is it lipid or water soluble? What are its targets? What effect does it have on the cells involved?
12. What might its effects be on the body when given in excess of what the body normally produces? 13. What dietary supplement(s) might you recommend to accompany the calcitonin treatment? Why?