A clinically meaningful difference was generated for a performance measure of recovery from hip fracture.
OBJECTIVE
The Lower Extremity Gain Scale (LEGS) is a performance measure of tasks that are often impaired in hip fracture patients. This study was designed to determine a clinically meaningful difference in LEGS.


METHODS
The population was 139 female patients (age >65 years) admitted to Baltimore hospitals. Recovery levels were estimated by fitting trajectory curves for the cohort for the 12 months post fracture. The clinically meaningful difference was evaluated using an anchor-based approach, examining the relationship between the LEGS recovery level and age. A second, distribution-based method used an effect size of .20.


RESULTS
According to our model, a difference of 5 years in age corresponded to a difference of 1.6-3.6 points in LEGS scores. The standard deviation for LEGS at 12 months was 8.0; thus, Cohen's effect size of 0.2 would equate to a difference of 1.6 points.


CONCLUSIONS
This suggests that a clinically meaningful difference in the LEGS scores for a population in this age range would be 2-3 points.
Hawkes
W G
WG
Division of Gerontology, Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine, University of Maryland, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA. whawkes@epi.umaryland.edu
Williams
G R
GR
Zimmerman
S
S
Lapuerta
P
P
Li
T
T
Orwig
D
D
Wehren
L
L
Hebel
J R
JR
Magaziner
J
J
D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006305:Health Status Indicators; D006620:Hip Fractures / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D006621:Hip Joint / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D020127:Recovery of Function; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D016896:Treatment Outcome