WHAT IS THE TRUE MORTALITY OF HIP-FRACTURES

A total of 709 consecutive patients admitted with a hip fracture were prospectively studied to establish the true mortality from the fracture. At one year from injury 37% of patients had died. For 63 (9%) of these patients the hip fracture was thought to have directly contributed to death, for 109 (16%) patients death was possibly related to the hip fracture and for 85 (12%) patients death was totally unrelated to the fracture. Analysis based on the cause of death and time from injury enables us to calculate the true mortality from proximal femoral fractures to be 15%. The remaining deaths are due to a variety of conditions associated with ageing.