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Undernourished Patients With Hip Fracture: Poor Outcome is Not Due to Excess Infections
Author(s) -
Bruce David,
Laurance Isabel,
Ng Lisa,
Goldswain Peter,
Perth Royal
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
australasian journal on ageing
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.63
H-Index - 34
eISSN - 1741-6612
pISSN - 1440-6381
DOI - 10.1111/j.1741-6612.1999.tb00111.x
Subject(s) - medicine , hip fracture , malnutrition , body mass index , dementia , logistic regression , excess mortality , disease , mortality rate , pediatrics , osteoporosis
Background : Undernourished hip fracture patients have poorer outcomes for undetermined reasons. We postulated that an immune deficit from malnutrition could lead to excess infections in these patients. Objective : To document the nutritional status (body mass index, BMI), infection rates and outcome in a group of patients with hip fracture. Subjects : One hundred consecutive cases, after excluding nursing home residents and those with end‐stage or malignant disease. Results : Low BMI was common and was associated with greater age, presence of dementia and falling indoors. Patients with low BMI had significantly poorer functional outcomes, greater mortality and nursing home admission rates. Infections were not more common in those with low BMI. An apparent association between poor outcome and the presence of infection in those with low BMI was not confirmed by multiple logistic regression analysis. Conclusions : Significant undernutrition was common and was associated with poorer outcomes in patients with hip fracture. This did not appear to be due to either an excess of infections or an adverse response to infection.