Survival and Functional Outcomes after Hip Fracture among Nursing Home Residents

Following the implementation of a long-term care insurance system for the elderly in Korea, many nursing homes have been established and many more patients than ever before have been living at nursing homes. Despite the fact that this is a high-risk group vulnerable to hip fractures, no study has yet been conducted in Korea on hip fracture incidence rates and prognoses among patients residing at nursing homes. We recently studied 46 cases of hip fracture in nursing homes; more specifically, we investigated the most common conditions under which fractures occur, and examined the degree of recovery of ambulatory ability and the mortality within 1 yr. Among those who had survived after 1 yr, the number of non-functional ambulators increased from 8 hips before hip fracture to 19 hips at final post-fracture follow-up. These individuals showed poor recovery of ambulatory ability, and the number who died within one year was 11 (23.9%), a rate not significantly different from that among community-dwelling individuals. It was evident that hip-joint-fracture nursing home residents survived for similar periods of time as did those dwelling in the community, though under much more uncomfortable conditions. The main highlight of this report is that it is the first from Korea on nursing home residents' ambulatory recovery and one-year mortality after hip fracture. The authors believe that, beginning with the present study, the government should collect and evaluate the number of hips fractured at nursing facilities in order to formulate criteria that will help to enable all patients to select safer and better-quality nursing facilities for themselves or their family members.