Article

The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the
burden of prevalent vertebral fractures and functional outcome in women with hip fracture. DESIGN: We investigated 164 of 180 women with hip fracture admitted
consecutively to a rehabilitation hospital. Lateral radiographs of the spine were
taken 20.0 +/- 5.1 days (mean +/- SD) after fracture occurrence. To obtain a
summary measure of vertebral fracture burden, we calculated the spinal deformity
index by summing the fracture grades of all vertebrae (T4 to L4), assessed using
Genant's method. Functional outcome was assessed using Barthel index scores.
RESULTS: In a Spearman rank test, we observed a significant negative correlation
between spinal deformity index scores and Barthel index scores at discharge from
rehabilitation (rho = -0.23; P = 0.003). The association between spinal deformity
index and Barthel index scores was confirmed (P = 0.039) after adjustment for
eight potential confounders. Multiple regression also showed a significant
negative association between spinal deformity index scores and increase in
Barthel index scores during rehabilitation (P = 0.012).
The panel of prognostic
factors that we included in the multivariate analysis accounted for 62% of the
variance in the Barthel index scores at discharge from rehabilitation and 43% of
their increase during rehabilitation. CONCLUSIONS: The burden of prevalent
vertebral fractures is negatively associated with functional outcome in women with hip fracture.

Langue : ANGLAIS