CORR Insights^®: Does Early Functional Outcome Predict 1-year Mortality in Elderly Patients With Hip Fracture?

Excerpt

Dubijanin-Raspopović and colleagues provided strong evidence that early functional outcome predicts 1-year mortality in elderly hip fracture patients. It is well documented that approximately 20–25% of hip fracture patients will not survive 1-year, and that men fare more poorly. While many factors have been associated with morbidity and mortality after this injury, the current article used a careful multivariate analysis to demonstrate that the Functional Independence Measure (FIM) test identified patients at risk. Parameters like age, comorbidity status, and gender all are accommodated by the postoperative 1-week FIM test. Of note, it appears that patients presenting with prior poor function often have poor function after fracture. Thus, a level of prefracture frailty may correlate with postoperative function. …