Question

an elderly woman finds that her back hurts almost all the time. her doctor tells her it is because she has osteoporosis. why might a disease that causes her bones to thin make her back hurt?

Answer 1

Choices: The bones of her vertebrae have lost calcium and crumbled enough to begin pinching the nerves leaving her spinal cord.

Nerves in the muscles in her back are slowly destroyed as the bones of her vertebrae get thinner and collapse.

The sensory neurons inside the bones of her vertebrae send pain messages to her brain as the bone dissolves.

Her thinner bones cannot support her skin and muscles adequately, and so the muscles cramp and hurt.