Functional outcome and mortality in nonagenarians following hip fracture surgery

The world’s population is ageing and the elderly population itself is growing older. This population shows a high incidence of hip fractures. We performed a retrospective study, reviewing the functional status, postoperative complications and mortality rate of nonagenarians who underwent surgery for hip fracture.

56 nonagenarian patients underwent hip fracture surgery in our institution between January 2000 and December 2010. Two of these patients had presented with hip fracture on separate occasions, giving a total of 58 hips for analysis. Patients with open fracture, subtrochanteric fracture, polytrauma and pathological fracture were excluded. The case notes, electronic records and X-rays for all those included in the study were reviewed. The main outcome measures were functional status, postoperative complications and mortality rate at 1 year.

Patients with extracapsular hip fractures were associated with higher risks of postoperative complications (60.7 %; p = 0.037), mortality (25 %; p = 0.003) and more likely to be non-ambulant at 1 year (53.6 vs 16.7 %; p = 0.003). Females were more likely to suffer postoperative complications than males (p = 0.016). 46.6 % of the patients had immediate postoperative complications and most commonly due to urological complications (29.3 %). The 1-year mortality rate was 12.1 %. A notable proportion of patients (65.5 %) remained ambulant 1 year postoperatively, although almost half of the patients (48.3 %) who could ambulate independently pre-injury required a walking aid after hip fracture surgery.

Nonagenarians have good surgical outcomes after hip fracture surgery with low mortality rate. They should be treated similarly as their younger counterparts in terms of decision for surgery. Potential decline in functional status and rehabilitation options should be shared with the patient and family at an early stage.