Article

OBJECTIVE: To investigate changes in health-related quality of life (HRQOL)
during the first year after injury in elderly Taiwanese women who had fractured a
hip, vertebra, distal forearm, or multiple sites. DESIGN: Longitudinal cohort
study. SETTING: Personal or telephone interviews of patients from 3 teaching
hospitals. PARTICIPANTS: Women (N=347; mean age +/- SD, 78.0+/-6.6y) who had
sustained a fracture of the hip, vertebra, or distal forearm due to a fall
participated in the baseline assessment, in which both current and prefracture
HRQOL data were collected. At 6 and 12 months after the fracture, 285 and 254
women, respectively, completed the follow-up assessments. INTERVENTIONS: Not
applicable. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE: The 4 domains of physical capacity,
psychological well-being, social relationships, and environment of the brief
version of the World Health Organization Quality of Life questionnaire were
assessed. RESULTS: After adjusting for prefracture HRQOL scores and baseline
characteristics, women with a hip fracture showed a significant improvement in
physical capacity (3.5 points) and a significant decline in social relationships
(-3.7 points). Relative to women with a hip fracture at 12 months after injury,
those with a vertebral fracture exhibited significantly greater improvement (5.2
points) in physical capacity; those with a distal forearm fracture had
significantly greater improvements in physical capacity (11.5 points),
psychological well-being (8.4 points), social relationships (7.2 points), and
environment (10.9 points), while those with multiple fractures displayed
significantly greater improvement in physical capacity (16.5 points),
psychological well-being (13.3 points), and environment (10.3 points).
CONCLUSIONS: Among the 4 fracture types in elderly women, hip fractures may
result in the smallest improvement in the physical domain and the greatest
declines in the psychological, social, and environmental domains during the first
year. The magnitude of the impact of each fracture type varied across different
domains.
CI - Copyright (c) 2012 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by
Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Langue : ANGLAIS