Faculty Bibliography

A prospective analysis was performed on 832 patients to determine the circumstances surrounding falls leading to hip fracture within a homogeneous, elderly urban population. Special emphasis was placed on the season of year, time of day, location of fall, and other circumstances in which the fracture occurred. All patients were community dwelling, cognitively intact, previously ambulatory elderly who sustained a femoral neck or intertrochanteric fracture. Most fractures occurred at home, particularly in patients who were older, less healthy, and poorer ambulators. More than 75% of fractures resulted from a fall while the patient was standing or walking. Most falls occurred during daylight hours with a peak seen in the afternoon. No seasonal variation in the incidence of hip fractures was observed

Three hundred thirty-eight community dwelling, ambulatory, elderly patients who sustained a hip fracture were observed prospectively to determine which patient and fracture characteristics at hospital admission predicted functional recovery at 3, 6, and 12 months. Multiple logistic regression was performed to estimate the simultaneous contributions of the predictor variables to failure of functional recovery. Before sustaining a fracture, 16% of patients were dependent on basic activities of daily living and 46% were dependent on instrumental activities of daily living. By 1 year after fracture, 73% of the patients had recovered to their basic activities of daily living status before fracture whereas only 48% had recovered to their instrumental activities of daily living status before fracture. Patients who were age 85 years or older, who lived alone before sustaining a fracture, and who had one or more comorbidities were at increased risk of delay or failure in recovering basic activities of daily living. Only instrumental activities of daily living independence before fracture predicted failure to recover instrumental activities of daily living function by 3 and 6 months after fracture. At 1 year, patient age 85 years or older was the only predictor of failure to recover instrumental activities of daily living function that existed before fracture. Based on characteristics at admission, a group of patients at high risk for failure to recover basic activities of daily living function within 1 year of sustaining a hip fracture can be identified

The effect of anesthetic technique on ambulation and functional recovery after hip fracture was studied in a series of 631 community dwelling, elderly patients. Functional recovery at followup was determined by an 11-item functional rating scale. In univariate analysis, recovery of ambulatory ability and percent functional recovery were significantly higher at 6 months for patients who had general anesthesia. When controlling for potential confounding variables, however, no differences were observed in recovery of ambulatory ability or percent functional recovery between the two groups at 3, 6, or 12 months after hip fracture

A study was performed to assess the impact of intensive inpatient rehabilitation on the outcome after a fracture of the femoral neck or an intertrochanteric fracture. Before 1990, our hospital did not have an inpatient rehabilitation program. On January 1, 1990, a diagnosis-related-group-exempt (DRG-exempt) acute rehabilitation program was initiated. Patients were discharged to this program after evaluation by a staff physiatrist. Before 1990, twenty-seven (9.0 per cent) of 301 patients were discharged to an outside rehabilitation facility. After January 1990, the percentage of patients who were discharged to the DRG-exempt program increased yearly, from nineteen (17 per cent) of 113 patients in 1990 to forty-one (64 per cent) of sixty-four patients in 1993; this difference was significant (p < 0.01). Before 1990, the average duration of the stay in the hospital was 21.9 days. After January 1990, the average duration for the patients who did not enter the rehabilitation program was 20.0 days whereas the average duration for those who did was 31.4 days (16.1 days for acute care and 15.6 days for the rehabilitation program). There were no differences in the hospital discharge status or in the walking ability, place of residence, need for home assistance, or independence in basic and instrumental activities of daily living at the six and twelve-month follow-up examinations between patients who had been managed before initiation of the rehabilitation program and those managed after it or between patients who had been discharged to this program after its initiation and those who had not. These results raise serious questions regarding the global cost-effectiveness of these programs for patients who have had a fracture of the femoral neck or an intertrochanteric fracture

OBJECTIVE: To determine the one year mortality following hip fracture in an ambulatory, community dwelling, cognitively intact elderly population and to examine the role of specific type, number, and severity of associated medical comorbidities. DESIGN: Prospective, consecutive. METHODS: Six hundred twelve elderly who sustained a non-pathologic hip fracture were followed. RESULTS: Twenty-four patients (4%) died during hospitalization; seventy-eight (12.7%) died within one year of fracture. The factors that were predictive of mortality, based on multivariate analysis, were patient age > 85 years, preinjury dependency in basic activities of daily living, a history of malignancy other than skin cancer, American Society of Anesthesiologists rating of operative risk 3 or 4, and the development of one or more in-hospital postoperative complications; all factors other than the development of an in-hospital complication were independent of treatment. CONCLUSION: These results indicate that efforts at reducing one year mortality after hip fracture should be directed at the prevention of postoperative complications

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether allogeneic red blood cell transfusion is a predictor for developing an in-hospital postoperative urinary tract, respiratory, or wound infection. STUDY DESIGN: Prospective, consecutive. METHODS: Six hundred eighty-seven community-dwelling, ambulatory, geriatric hip fracture patients were prospectively followed; all patients had operative fracture treatment and received perioperative antibiotics. RESULTS: Sixty-eight patients had a culture-positive infection before operative treatment. One hundred thirty-four of the remaining 619 patients (21.6%) developed a postoperative infection, primarily a urinary tract infection. The infection rate was 26.8% in transfused patients compared with 14.9% in nontransfused patients (p = 0.001). When stratifying by the type of infection, only the risk of urinary tract infection was statistically significant (p = 0.001). After controlling for the effect of patient age, sex, number of preinjury medical comorbidities, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) rating of operative risk, fracture type, surgical delay, type of surgery, type of anesthesia, operative time, and blood loss, the relationship between allogeneic red blood cell transfusion and postoperative urinal tract infection remained statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Geriatric hip fracture patients who receive allogeneic red blood cell transfusions are at higher risk for developing a postoperative urinary tract infection than are those patients who are not transfused