title: Incident falls impair ability to function in hip-fracture survivors: a prospective study of 95 elderly women.
abstract: The present study focused on home-dwelling women successfully discharged back to the community after a fall-related fracture of the hip. We investigated the role of incident falls in affecting ability to function in activities of daily living. Ninety-five of 103 consecutive women without cognitive impairment were recruited during in-patient rehabilitation following their first hip fracture. Functional independence in activities of daily living was assessed by using the Barthel Index (BI) score at discharge from in-patient rehabilitation and at a 6-month follow-up. Nineteen of the 95 women sustained one or more falls during a median observation time of 187 days. At a Mann-Whitney test, both BI scores assessed at the 6-month follow-up and gains in BI scores during the follow-up were significantly lower in the 19 fallers than in the 76 non-fallers (p=0.021 and p=0.030, respectively), whereas no significant differences were found in baseline BI scores between the two groups. At linear multiple regression, we found a negative association between incident falls and both functional scores (p=0.01) and their gains (p=0.006) after adjustment for several confounders. We conclude that incident falls were significantly associated with a worse functional score in our sample of hip-fracture women.
authors.affiliation: Osteoporosis Research Center, Presidio Sanitario San Camillo, Strada Santa Margherita 136, IT-10131, Torino, Italy. Medici@h-sancamillo.to.it
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Di Monaco
authors.forename: Fulvia
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Vallero
authors.forename: Rosa
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Tappero
authors.forename: Lucia
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: De Lauso
authors.forename: Elena
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: De Toma
authors.forename: Alberto
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cavanna
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006620:Hip Fractures / Q000534:rehabilitation* / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D016014:Linear Models; D011446:Prospective Studies; D020127:Recovery of Function; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D017741:Survivors