Abstract

The national Finnish guidelines for medical treatment of hip fracture patients are: anti-osteoporotic drugs and the daily concomitant use of calcium plus vitamin D supplements. We investigated the incidence, the fracture type and the side of all second hip fractures among 221 consecutive hip fracture patients who were followed up for 5 years. The medication of the patients and the time interval between the first and second hip fracture were analyzed. Of the patients 12% (26/221) sustained a second hip fracture. The type of fracture was in most cases (76%) the same as in the first case, more often in trochanteric and subtrochanteric fractures than in cervical fractures. The mean interval between the fractures was 4±4.2 years (±S.D.); 3.2±3.5 years in men and 4.4±4.4 years in women. The number of patients using polypharmacy (5 or more drugs daily) was 9/25 (36%) at the time of the first hip fracture and 17/25 (68%) at the time of the second hip fracture. The use of at least one psychotropic drug regularly rose from 9/25 (36%) to 16 (64%) between the two fractures. Concomitant use of calcium plus vitamin D and anti-osteoporotic drugs was insufficient among the patients. More effort should be focused on the secondary prevention following the first hip fracture.

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