Abstract
Purpose: The elderly population is increasing in the modern world. Societies in general and medical personnel are facing new ethical and medical dilemmas when treating extremely old patients. Elderly patients have osteoporotic bone and hence a high incidence of fractures. Evaluating this unique group of patients who have hip fractures is our goal.
Materials and Methods: A retrospective analysis of all patients who had hip fractures between January 1990 and December 2001 and were beyond 100 years old was handled.
Data was collected from the medical files (hospitalization and out-patient charts) for age, sex, type of fracture, type of treatment, background disease, rehabilitation and time until death. The latter was confirmed by data from ministry of home office.
Results: 23 patients (17 females and 6 males) were found. Ages ranged from 100 and 107 (mean: 101.78). They had 4 subcapital and 19 per-subtrochanteric fractures. The patients had between 1–5 major background diseases. 4 patients were treated conservatively (1 due to major pneumonia and 3 refused the operative procedure). All these patients died at the same month of admission. Among the 19 patients who underwent operation, 12 patients have died and lived between 0–34 months (mean: 7.43) post-operatively, and 7 are still alive for 4–75 months (mean: 34.43) post-operatively. No differences between the operative and conservative groups in terms of major background disease were found.
Conclusions: Most of hip fractures in the extreme old age are per-subtrochanteric. Operative treatment yielded better results and should be the treatment of choice.
The abstracts were prepared by Ms Orah Naor. Correspondence should be addressed to Israel Orthopaedic Association at PO Box 7845, Haifa 31074, Israel.
