Why do 50% of people who break their hip die within a year of doing so? What is the connection to breaking your hip and dying?
In: Biology
Answer:
This statistic is not a direct correlation. But caused by another factor. Basically if you break your hip you wont necessarily die within 6 months because of the broken hip. But as a result of a common factor – in this case age. Elderly people break their hips much more than younger people. And they are also more likely to die.
Elderly people are more likely to die after a broken hip due to factors such as trauma from surgery, health conditions, internal bleeding or the time it takes to heal. These all make recovery harder and death more likely.
This is a classic error. Don’t mistake correlation for causation.
Let me give you an example. Suppose I told you that sunglasses sales went up and down when ice cream sales went up and down. Does wearing sunglasses make you want ice cream? Or maybe does eating ice cream make you want to wear sunglasses? Not necessarily. Maybe they both have a common cause; hot, sunny weather.
Ditto for breaking your hip. Do young people tend to break their hips? Not really; it’s hard to do. Who does? Usually, the elderly; people who are more likely to die anyway, and who have a harder time recovering from illness and injury. There isn’t necessarily a direct connection between breaking your hip and dying; but there is a connection between being elderly and breaking your hip, and being elderly and dying.
Hip fractures are commonly associated with frequent falls. Falling a lot suggest a number of things – decreased strength, decreased balance, maybe decreased judgement, maybe impaired neurological function, remodeled bones from non-use, and overall poor function in general. In a word: Frail.
After a major injury like a traumatic hip fracture, in order to recover there needs significant and concerted effort for rehab – which of course is a tall order in a person who is having falls to start. In memory patients, for instance, they can not remember enough to make any progress. Regardless, in that 6 weeks to a few months a lot more atrophy tends to set in. Function declines further. Bowels stop moving. Complications associated with immobility, UTI’s, pneumonia, GI problems, problems from DVT prophylaxis (anticoagulation) are common. There may not be a direct causation, but there are multiple inter-related issues along with initially poor function marking hip fracture as a frequent terminal event.
Several reasons. For one, people who break their hips tend to be quite elderly, and elderly people are at very high risk of dying for a lot of reasons. This is a correlation, not causation, as some people have pointed out.
But there ARE causational factors too. An elderly person who breaks their hip will often have to go into the hospital to get surgery or other kinds of treatment. Surgery is always risky and can cause infections and other complications, but especially in the elderly who have less well-functioning body systems in general. Prolonged hospital stays also increase the risk of infection by the nasty kind of bugs that tend to hang around in hospitals, like pneumonia, C difficile, or MRSA–and again, elderly people are more vulnerable.
Finally, being immobilized for along period of time (as **[edit]** CAN happen if you don’t get the right kind of recovery treatment) as well as the actual trauma of surgery puts you at huge risk of having blood clots that form in your legs, especially when you’re elderly! These blood clots can then travel into your lungs and cause pulmonary embolisms. This is a HUGE cause of death in hospitals—it’s the most common reason why people die after surgery [Edit: I originally said it was 1/3 of all hospital deaths but that doesn’t seem to be correct. Apologies!]
My grandma was very active in her late 80’s still walked to get a paper from the shop
until she broke her hip the lack of confidence and mobility while recovering took it’s toll on her she died 6 months later
Most people who break their hips are elderly, and quite a few surely have other health issues. They’re likely frail, and may not rebound or be able to heal the break and rehab it.
It’s sad.
My grandma, who lived down the road from me all my life, had a stroke the day before my birthday a couple of years ago. I was there when it happened, and helped her a lot afterwards.
She couldn’t talk as well, and couldn’t walk that well, but did impressively well for herself post-stroke. My grandparents would come up for supper upwards of 3 or 4 times a week, or would bring us takeout. Every time she came up, or we went out for supper, I would hold her arm and help her.
On an icy and wintry weekend, we got a call saying she’d fallen. My dad rushed down and got an ambulance called. She had gone to the washroom, fallen and broken her hip. There were no stairs involved. Oddly enough, she’d been out for supper and to our house the past two icy nights, but I’d helped her and she hadn’t fallen. We assume she had another stroke then, but do not know.
She was sleeping so much at that time, even at home, that the broken hip was unfortunately like a death spell to her. They operated on it, and she spent a while in hospital, but she wasn’t strong or awake enough most days to get up and do any rehab, and unfortunately passed away in hospital.
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That’s weird, because when I read the title I was like ‘what? There’s no correlation between those two things!’ Then I thought of the 2 people I know who broke their hip and they both died within a year of doing so.
I heard a doctor talk about how people say an old person fell and broke their hip, when in actuality, a lot of the time they fell because their hip broke.
What is your source on that figure?
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