Stroke doubles patients’ risk of hip or thigh fracture

An articly By Stroke Connection Magazine March/April 2010

Stroke Survivors have about twice the risk of breaking a hip or femur compared to those without a stroke – and the risk is even greater for younger patients, women and those with recent strokes.  Dutch researchers report in Stroke: Journal of the American Hear Association”.  Their findings imply that it is important to conduct fracture risk assessment immediately after a patient is hospitalized for stroke.  They studied 6,763 patients who had a hip/femur fracture and matched them by age, gender and location with 26,341 others in a large database of Dutch patients without fractures.  After adjusting for general factors for fracture risk, the researchers found:

1. Overall, stroke was associated with about double the risk of fracture
2. Among women, fracture risk was slightly higher than double
3. Patients were most vulnerable for hip/femur fracture during the first three months after a stroke, when the risk was more than three times higher.
4. The youngest stroke survivors (70 years or younger) were at the highest risk.

The findings of highest risk of fracture in the first months after stroke confirm and reinforce other trials that showed “substantially higher” rates of bone mineral density loss within the first six months after stroke.  Loss of bone mineral density was most obvious in paralyzed extremities.

 The majority of hip/femur fractures occurred in people age 50 or older and the average period between stroke and fracture was 22 years. The average of study participants was 75, and 73 percent were female.

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