Dakota Doc Says Walking Prevents Hip Fractures

Richard P. Holm, M.D., reminded readers of the Rapid City Journal that prior to the development of a surgical repair for hip fracture, treatment involved six weeks of traction and bed rest. The death rate was 80% from blood clots or pneumonia. Doctors pinned bones together with ivory pins until a German doctor, during World War II, began using metal rods to stabilize bone fragments.

Once hip pinning became popular, patients found that they could stand up and start walking within days of surgery, dramatically reducing the death rate following hip fracture. Holm wrote that presently, in about a third of the cases, the surgical repair of a fractured hip involves a new artificial ball and socket to replace the fractured hip. Pinning still works in most cases, he wrote, and is quicker, easier, cheaper, and sometimes safer than the more invasive total hip replacement surgery.

The risk of death from a hip fracture is now about 10% at one month, according to Holm, and rises to 40% at one year. In 2011 hip fractures resulted in about 30% of all U.S. hospitalizations, costing about $5 billion dollars and an untold amount of suffering.

Holm says that 90% of hip fractures happen as a result of falling. And people fall because of inactivity and poor physical conditioning. He tells his clients that “inactivity is the most important risk factor for hip fracture. Although advanced age, poor eyesight, blood pressure medicines, soft bones, neurological and cardiac conditions are also risk factors, the big danger comes from a lifetime of inactivity.” He tells his patients, “unless you want to end up on a cold linoleum floor someday (as did one of his patients) get out and get walking.”