Hip Fractures and the Impact of COVID-19

Ray Marks

Departments of Health and Behavior Studies, Columbia University, Teachers College, New York, NY, USA

Dr. Ray Marks, Departments of Health and Behavior Studies, Columbia University, Teachers College, New York, NY, USA.

Keywords: COVID-19; Fragility; Hip Fractures; Older Adults; Prevention

Abstract

Hip fractures, which remain an important costly health concern in aging populations that commonly lead to disabling hip osteoarthritis, and or premature death continue to occur despite a general fracture reduction amidst the 2020 coronavirus lock-down period. Although generally amenable to emergency room admittance followed by treatment, a question arises as to whether there is any tangible impact on survival, mobility and independence recovery, and possible life quality in the midst of the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and if so, what lessons can be learned to date, if indeed, a second wave of this infectious disease is predicted. To address these questions, this mini review elected to examine all available and pertinent literature sources published in the peer reviewed English language between January 1 2020 and Aug 10 2020 concerning hip fractures and COVID-19 regardless of report type. The aim was to identify if specific interventions to offset the risk of incurring this injury and its attendant disability and possible highly adverse additional orthopaedic outcomes are warranted at this time of widespread lock downs and service closures or delays.

This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).