Exploring the Effectiveness of PAC Rehabilitation for Elders with Hip Surgery: A Retrospective Study

Hip fractures are high risk and high-impact events in the elderly population; despite orthopedic hip surgery, the disability and mortality rate remains significant. The National Health Insurance Agency in Taiwan established a fragility fracture PAC rehabilitation program to provide functional recovery for these patients after the surgery. However, the current literature on PAC rehabilitation is outdated, and there is an urgent need for the re-evaluation of the program.

This is a retrospective cohort study that enrolled 159 patients in the PAC rehabilitation program, followed by hip repair surgery. Outcome measures were the differences in participants' pre- and post-PAC scores in 1) Barthel index, 2) Numerical Rating Scale (NRS), and 3) Harris Hip Scores (HHS) as surrogate indicators of the functional status, followed by the analysis of subgroups, including sex, age, site of the fracture, type of procedure, and the number of comorbidities.

After completing PAC rehabilitation, 86.2% of the patients successfully returned to the community with either home or out-patient rehabilitation. The re-admission rate was 3.1% and 3.8% in 14-days and in 30-days follow up, respectively. The difference in pre- and post-Barthel index, NRS, and HHS showed significant improvement (p<0.001), without significant variations between the subgroups. Additionally, the Barthel index showed a positive correlation to HHS and a negative correlation to NRS.

This study revealed that the current form of post-surgery fragility fracture PAC program effectively improves functional status, reduces the re-admission rate, and facilitates the patient transition back to the community. The results should improve patients' and physicians' confidence in such a program.