Grant: Travel Awards - Institute Community Support

When old people fall they sometimes break their hip. They then go to hospital to get better. Once they are better and go home from hospital they are in danger of falling and breaking their other hip. We should do something to help stop these people from breaking their other hip. Few doctors give their broken hip patients medication or exercise to stop them breaking their other hip. This may be because they do not know which patients are going to fall or when they are going to fall. This study helps to answer these questions. We looked at 38,383 hospital files of people older than 60 years of age, who went home after having an operation for their broken hip between April 1, 1990 and March 31, 2005 in British Columbia, Canada. We were interested to see how many people broke both hips and how long they were at home before they broke their other hip. During ten-years, 21,428 (56%) died before breaking their other hip, and 2,902 (8%) broke their other hip. After breaking their hip people had on average a 3.5% change of breaking their other hip every year they stayed alive. This chance was the same every year for ten years after their first broken hip. Men and women had the same chance of breaking their other hip. Women and men who do not die after they break their hip have the same chance of breaking their other hip. They are as likely to break their other hip in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth or tenth year after they break their first hip. Doctors should give medication or exercises to both women and men after they break a hip. Medication or exercise will help these people at any time after they break their hip.