Return to Community Living and Functional Ability Following Inpatient Rehabilitation for Hip Fracture in Patients Aged ≥65 Years: A Retrospective Descriptive Observational Study.
Hitomi Oishi, Motoyuki Horii, Maki Asada and 4 others
PMID 42769346WHAT IT FOUND
Most older hip fracture patients who had lived at home returned after inpatient rehabilitation, but 18.1% returning to family and 26.3% returning to live alone had low function scores and likely needed support beyond family caregivers.
Key findings
01Of 364 patients who had lived with family, 317 (87.1%) returned home; of 179 who had lived alone, 136 (76.0%) returned home alone and 7 (3.9%) moved in with family, for 79.9% returning home.
02Median total FIM scores at discharge were 107 for those returning to family, 109 for those returning alone, 84 for those discharged to a residential facility, and 46 for those discharged to a long-term care hospital ward.
03Among patients discharged home, 18.1% of those returning to family and 2.2% of those returning alone had total FIM scores below 80; 62.9% and 73.7% had scores of 100 or higher.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study was retrospective and did not measure preinjury ADL with standardized scores, so it cannot show how much rehabilitation improved function. It did not follow patients after discharge, so it cannot show whether home living remained safe or sustainable. It excluded patients transferred back to acute care hospitals and those already living in institutions or chronic care, so it does not apply to those groups. It was done in one Japanese rehabilitation ward in an area with relatively strong community care and long inpatient stays, so results may not transfer to systems with shorter stays or fewer services. No comparison group or intervention was tested, so it cannot identify what caused the discharge outcomes. Characteristics of cohabitants were not available.
Declared interests
Y.M. serves as head of an endowed department supported by Heisei Medical Welfare Group. The other authors declare no conflicts of interest, and the paper states all reported relationships are unrelated to the study.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the high return-home rate as proof that rehabilitation restored independence. The study did not measure preinjury function, did not follow patients after discharge, and found many patients returned home with low function scores.