[Rehabilitation of hip fractures. Systematic review]

Hip fractures are considered among one of the most disabling injuries in patients older than 60 years of age. This fractures are associated with a high incidence of mortality and it is the leading cause of hospital admission that requires surgical treatment in Orthopaedic Trauma Centers.

This systematic review aimed to group, classify and report the best level of evidence of physical therapy and rehabilitation of patients that have been treated with osteostynthesis after trochanteric or subtrochanteric fracture. The outcomes of efficacy and safety were return to activities of daily living, independence and rate of complications.

We identified 3,889 abstracts from PubMed, and 1,567 abstracts from other sources, after eliminating duplicates, and posterior to a thorough screening 378 abstracts were read. From these, 316 abstracts were excluded, and 62 articles were considered eligible. After reading for relevant outcomes 41 articles were excluded. Synthesis was based in 21 studies.

Long term results of specialized physical therapy, appear to be crucial in the first months after surgery, and not that important after the four months after surgery. Recent literature supports that the differences of daily activities and independence of the patients that survive a hip fracture tend to be similar with no difference in the type of physical therapy.