| Summary: | 博士 === 長庚大學 === 臨床醫學研究所 === 101 === A hip fracture is an accidental event that often reduces a person's functional activities and has a high mortality rate among the elderly. Chronic diseases are common in the elderly, but little is known how the comorbidity affects the recovery of the elderly with a hip fracture.
This study explored the influence of comorbidities for one year after a hip fracture in older patients in Taiwan using longitudinal, repeated measurements. The sample (n=461) for this study was drawn from two prior interventional studies on hip-fractured elderly in Taiwan (n = 162, 299, conducted from 2001 to 2004, and 2005 to 2009, respectively). All participants were recruited from the same orthopedic ward of a tertiary medical center in northern Taiwan. Their criteria were: age 60 years, hospitalized due to single thigh/hip fracture, received surgery, living in northern Taiwan, functional independent prior to fracture and without severe cognitive impairment. All data were collected at admission, discharge, and 1, 3, 6, 12 months after discharge. The collected data were analyzed using multiple imputation based estimating equations by SPSS 18.0. The participants’ participation groups, gender, age, time after discharge and their pre-fracture ADL performance were all controlled in the analysis. The results showed that the elderly with the number of comorbidities ≦1 had a better recovery during the first year after hip fracture than those with comorbidities >1. Our findings show that comorbidities significantly and negatively affect the recovery of hip fracture, especially in the elderly with more than one comorbidity. Therefore, based on the findings of this study, health care providers need to assess the comorbidity of hip fractured elderly patients and pay specific attention to those with more than one comorbidity.
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