Adults over the age of 65 are about three times more likely to die in the year following a hip fracture than their peers who do not experience the injury, according to a study published in Archives of Osteoporosis.
For the study, researchers analyzed one-year mortality rates among 9,748 patients over the age of 65 who presented at hospitals across Australia with hip fractures in 2009. Researchers compared these records to individuals with correlating age, gender and geographic locations who did not have hip fractures.
Hip fracture patients were 3.5 times more likely to die within a year than their non-injured counterparts. Additionally, researchers determined the hip fracture was a contributory factor in mortality for 72 percent of those who died a year after being admitted with the injury.
"With an aging population … the burden of hip fractures is expected to increase in the coming decades," concluded the study authors. "Because incident hip fracture is the main predictor of subsequent mortality, the main priority for reducing excess mortality after hip fracture is primary and secondary prevention of hip fracture."
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