A longitudinal examination of functional recovery among older people with subcapital hip fractures

OBJECTIVE: Few studies have examined the time-dependent change in functional recovery along with the factors that affect the change among older hip fracture patients. The focus of this study is to examine the predictors of functional recovery in community-dwelling older people with subcapital fractures using longitudinal data analysis methods. DESIGN: A 1-year prospective study. Information was obtained through structured interviews following surgery and at 2, 6, and 12 months after hospital discharge and from medical chart review. SETTING AND PATIENTS: The sample consisted of 312 community-dwelling older adults, admitted to one of the seven Baltimore area hospitals with a subcapital fracture, who received either internal fixation or hemiarthroplasty. RESULTS: The longitudinal data analysis using mixed-effects regression indicates that time and prefracture physical activities of daily living (PADL) had a significant association with PADL functional recovery over the course of 1 year. Among those 85 years and older, those who were disoriented after surgery had poorer PADL functional recovery over time than those who were not disoriented. Also, recovery in instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) was associated significantly with time, prefracture IADL function, unsteady gait prefracture, hospital length of stay, and discharge to an institution. The type of surgical procedure performed was not associated significantly with either PADL or IADL functional recovery. CONCLUSIONS: The factors that are related to functional recovery in this study shed light on the complexity of the recovery process in hip fracture patients. The rate of recovery in postsurgical PADL and IADL function is not constant over time; postsurgical IADL function among disoriented patients (without dementia) continues to deteriorate over time compared with the nondisoriented group; this difference in trends of deterioration on IADL function is most profound in the oldest-old aged group, those 85 and older. The types of surgical procedure performed was not significantly associated with postsurgical functional recovery.