Abstract
Twenty patients with an average age of 39.2(20.61)years and lower extremity injuries requiring 28.8(7.82)days of completely limited weight bearing served as subjects for this study. The femoral neck and the greater trochanter bone mineral densities(BMD)of both lower extremities were studied using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry. Relative bone loss in the affected versus the unaffected limb was 4.9 % in the femoral neck and 3.5 % in the greater trochanter. The correlation coefficients between the period of non-weight bearing and the atrophy ratio of the femoral neck and the trochanter were 0.50(p <0.05)and 0.63(p <0.01), respectively. BMD of the proximal femur decreased by about 0.1 % per day in the injured non-weight bearing limbs with the slope of the regression lines being 0.09 for the femoral neck and 0.13 for the greater trochanter.
