Human growth and development can be expressed in terms of two "ages", namely age of life (calendar age) and biological age (bone age).
Bone age is short for bone age and needs to be determined with the help of a specific image of the bone in an X-ray camera. Usually, X-rays of the left wrist of the person are taken, and the doctor observes the degree of development of the ossification center of the phalangeal bone, wrist bone and lower radial ulnar bone of the left hand through X-ray to determine the bone age.
Abnormal bone age
Biological age (bone age)-age difference between living age and less than ±1 year of age is called normal development.
Biological age (bone age) - the difference between living age > 1 year is called pre-development (abbreviation: precocious puberty).
Biological age (bone age) - difference in age of life
Predict height
There is an extremely close correlation between bone age and child height, and there is a high correlation between height and adult height at each age stage, so based on current bone age, it is possible to predict how tall it is likely to grow. When forecasting, the current height and bone age are required, and the girl must also enter whether she has come to menstrual leave. Adult height is then calculated using a different prediction formula.
Causes of shortness
One is that the child belongs to the physical shortness, the bone age and the living age are consistent, which is also considered to be normal development; the second is that the child's bone age is less than the living age, which is the child's growth and development abnormalities, and there are many reasons for this abnormality. Once the cause is determined, symptomatic treatment is possible. The same is short stature as the main manifestation, primary short stature, familial hereditary short stature, intrauterine growth retardation and constitutional pubertal developmental delay, clinical identification has certain difficulties, determination of bone age, prediction of adult height and combined with medical history can help diagnose; primary short stature, familial hereditary short stature bone age is normal, predicting adult height value is low, but the adult height prediction value of children with familial hereditary short stature is within the range of genetic height; intrauterine developmental delay Bone age is low, adult height is also short, combined with medical history, Diagnosed in early childhood, constitutional puberty developmental delay is lagging behind in bone age, bone age is basically the same as height age, and adult height prediction value is not low.
It must be noted that because there are many factors affecting height, no matter which method is used to predict, the prediction formula cannot take all the factors into account, and after each prediction, many factors such as nutrition, disease, and environment of the prediction object cannot be predicted, and although these prediction methods have a certain scientific basis, the error of height prediction is always inevitable. However, the predicted results reflect the trend that cannot be wrong.