Spontaneous fractures of the hip in the elderly

The authors found 41 patients with 42 fractures of the hip who had no distinct history of trauma in the total of 1,449 hip fractures treated. They were all women ranging in age from 64 to 91 years. Most of the fractures were of intracapsular type. Three extracapsular fractures, however, were found. Fractures were randomly selected with clear history of trauma, which were matched to the patients with no trauma for age, sex, and type of fracture as a control group. The grades of osteoporosis of the femoral neck, estimated with the Singh index, and of the spine, estimated with the spinal score, were noted statistically significantly higher in the patients than those in the control group. Most of spontaneous fractures of the hip in the elderly are considered similar phenomena to the compression fractures of the dorsolumbar spine.