Hip Fractures In The Elderly
When Teresa Lang remembered a last-minute item she needed for her trip to Europe, she jumped up from her couch. She tumbled over a small suitcase on the floor, right into a wall. "The instant I did this, before I hit the wall, I knew what had happened," says the 88-year-old Lang. She had broken her left hip.
Hip fractures in the elderly are common-for every 10 hip fractures, about nine occur in people over the age of 60. "Hip fractures double with every five-year increase in age [after age 50]," says Sandy B. Ganz, PT, DSc, GCS, the director of rehabilitation at Amsterdam Nursing Home in New York City. By 90 years of age, one in four women and one in eight men will have fractured a hip, according to a study done by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
This article continues at Hip Fracture in the Elderly and Assisted Care.