osteomalacia/rickets:

Characteristics

🔹 "SOFT BONE" for Osteomalacia

• Skeletal pain

• Osteopenia

• Fractures (Looser’s zones)

• Tender bones

• Bowing of bones (mild)

• Overall muscle weakness

• Nonspecific symptoms (fatigue)

• Easy fractures

🔹 "RICKETS" for Children

• Rachitic rosary (costochondral swelling)

• Irregular metaphyses (fraying, cupping)

• Craniotabes (soft skull)

• Knock-knees or bowed legs

• Enlarged wrists & ankles

• Thickening of growth plates

• Stunted growth

Radiological Features Mnemonic

🔹 "LOOSER Bones for Osteomalacia"

• Looser’s zones (pseudofractures)

• Osteopenia

• Odd fractures (insufficiency fractures)

• Soft bones (bowing, concave vertebrae)

• Endplate deformities (codfish vertebrae)

• Reduced cortical thickness

🔹 "WIDE GROWTH for Rickets"

• Widened metaphysis

• Irregular growth plates

• Deformed bones (bowing)

• Enlarged joints (wrists, ankles)

• Growth plate fraying

• Rachitic rosary

• Osteomalacia signs in severe cases

• Weakened long bones

• Thin cortex