No rest for the wounded: early ambulation after hip surgery accelerates recovery
Three pages on PainSci cite Oldmeadow 2006: 1. Mobilize! 2. The Art of Rest 3. PF-ROM Exercises
PainSci notes on Oldmeadow 2006:
From the abstract: “Early mobilization after hip fracture surgery accelerates functional recovery and is associated with more discharges directly home and less to high-level care.”
original abstract †Abstracts here may not perfectly match originals, for a variety of technical and practical reasons. Some abstacts are truncated for my purposes here, if they are particularly long-winded and unhelpful. I occasionally add clarifying notes. And I make some minor corrections.
BACKGROUND: Level 3 evidence-based guidelines recommend first walk after hip fracture surgery within 48 h. Early mobilization is resource and effort intensive and needs rigorous investigation to justify implementation. This study uses a prospective randomized method to investigate the effect of early ambulation (EA) after hip fracture surgery on patient and hospital outcomes.
METHODS: Sixty patients (41 women and 19 men; mean age 79.4 years) admitted between March 2004 through December 2004 to The Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, for surgical management of a hip fracture were studied. Randomization was either EA (first walk postoperative day 1 or 2) or delayed ambulation (DA) (first walk postoperative day 3 or 4). Functional levels on day 7 post-surgery, acute hospital length of stay and destination at discharge were compared.
RESULTS: At 1 week post-surgery, patients in the EA group walked further than those in the DA group (P = 0.03) and required less assistance to transfer (P = 0.009) and negotiate a step (P = 0.23). Patients in the EA group were more likely to be discharged directly home from the acute care than those in the DA group (26.3 compared with 2.4%) and less likely to need high-level care (36.8 compared with 56%). A failed early ambulation subgroup had significantly more postoperative cardiovascular instability and worse results for all outcome measures.
CONCLUSION: EA after hip fracture surgery accelerates functional recovery and is associated with more discharges directly home and less to high-level care.
This page is part of the PainScience BIBLIOGRAPHY, which contains plain language summaries of thousands of scientific papers & others sources. It’s like a highly specialized blog. A few highlights:
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