TUESDAY, July 24 (HealthDay News) -- Among elderly nursing home residents, the use of a hip protector does not reduce the incidence of fracture, according to study findings published in the July 25 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Douglas P. Kiel, M.D., of Hebrew SeniorLife and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and colleagues studied 1,042 residents (average age 85) of 37 nursing homes who wore a hip protector on one hip only so they could serve as their own controls. Overall participant adherence was 73.8 percent and mean participation duration was 7.8 months.
After 20 months of follow-up, the researchers terminated the study because there was no significant difference in fracture rates between protected and unprotected hips (3.1 percent versus 2.5 percent). In a subanalysis of 334 residents with greater than 80 percent adherence, they also found no significant difference in fracture rates between protected and unprotected hips (5.3 percent versus 3.5 percent).
"Although Kiel et al. provide useful data from an important trial, these findings and those from past studies are not sufficient to make evidence-based recommendations for or against use of hip protectors among frail, nursing home residents," state the authors of an accompanying editorial, who argue that more randomized studies are needed to settle the issue.
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Editorial
