Frailty Intervention in Postoperative Hip Fracture Inpatients

Hip fractures are often the result of falls in the frail older population and result in subsequent poor quality of life and mortality.Over a third of older adults die in the first year after having sustained a hip fracture, suggesting that this may be a result of frailty and the beginning of a decline towards end of life. The incidence of patients presenting with hip fractures is predicted to rise to 11.9% in 2030 compared to 2010. Hip fracture care contributes to a significant burden towards healthcare systems, costing approximately £25,000 per episode and almost £1 billion per annum in the United Kingdom. This likely stems from the likelihood of its association with longer hospital length of stays, multimorbidity and readmissions. Frailty, an age related impairment of physical reserves and resilience, is common in hip fracture patients, and plays a significant role in determining outcomes in this cohort.

Current recommendations suggest early mobilisation post hip fracture to facilitate return to pre-fracture mobility and independence. Intensive in-hospital rehabilitation of post hip fracture patients have been shown to impart greater improvements in physical function and activities of daily living. Hence, physiotherapy on the first day postoperatively is now a recognized quality standard. To supplement this, it is recommended that rehabilitation be provided by multidisciplinary healthcare teams to maximize potential for return to pre-fracture level of function.

The prevalence of malnutrition in hip fracture patients is often high. The management of this problem, particularly in hip fracture patients is challenging. Reduced oral intake in older inpatients are often multifactorial. Studies involving monomodal nutritional interventions in hip fracture patients have shown mixed results. It has been shown that early nutritional intervention led by dieticians was associated with lower prevalence of malnutrition and incidence of pressure ulcers. There was also an association with reduced subacute length of stay. Another study demonstrated that combined nutritional counselling and intensive nutritional intervention led by a dietician reduced malnutrition and improved dietary intake, but only for the duration of the intervention. However, a Cochrane review concluded that nutritional supplementation in the aftercare of hip fracture patients had unclear benefit on outcomes and more randomised trials with robust methodology are required.

There is now an established body of evidence that frailty is modifiable through a combination of nutrition and exercise. However, most of the studies to date have examined interventions delivered over longer periods (e.g. months); and in the community setting. There is however, emerging evidence of in-hospital multicomponent interventions targeting physical and non-physical components of frailty. A recent study showed that a multicomponent intervention in frail and pre-frail adults with cardiovascular disease was safe and feasible in the acute setting. This encompassed additional encouragement to mobilize between usual physiotherapy visits and eat during meals. Additional cognitive stimulation activities and screening and addressing iron deficiency anaemia were also performed bi-daily. It has been shown that an in-hospital multidomain intervention that included nutrition and frailty education and advice, an exercise intervention and cognitive stimulation activities improved frailty and activities of daily living at time of discharge as well as reduced length of stay and subsequent healthcare utilisation.

There is still a relative paucity of research in frailty interventions in older patients who sustained major trauma, and in particular in multi-modal interventions. Studies to date in this population have explored interventions aiming to enhance recovery post-hip fracture for frail patients, however specifically looked at mono-modal interventions, included outpatient interventions in the analyses or only addressed specific components of frailty separately such as cognitive impairment or sarcopenia in the evaluation of rehabilitation strategies in this cohort.

The objective of this study is to assess the feasibility of this intervention in the acute postoperative aftercare of frail older inpatients with hip fracture.

Inclusion criteria

• Older adults >/= 65
• Clinical Frailty Score 4-6 (This includes patients with very mild, mild and moderate frailty. This would be in keeping with literature quoting frailty interventions where patients who are 'pre-frail' and frail are included)
• Post fragility hip fracture (including subtrochanteric fracture)
• Post hip fracture surgery (all types including total hip replacement, hemiarthroplasty, IM nailing)
• Medically stable postoperatively
• No weightbearing restriction
• Mobile pre-admission (including aids and max assist of 1 person)

Exclusion criteria

• Medically unstable (NEWS >3, unless a higher cutoff is stipulated by the primary medical researcher)
• Non fragility hip fracture (fracture from non osteoporotic aetiology, pathologic fracture)
• Hip surgery for other aetiology (prosthetic joint infection, arthritis, implant loosening, avascular necrosis, periprosthetic fracture)
• Polytrauma
• Delirium or severe cognitive impairment (as defined by inability to follow instructions and unable to provide informed consent)
• Pre-existing neurologic or cardiovascular disorders that would affect participation/ compliance with exercise intervention
• Open hip fracture
• Other lower limb orthopaedic disorders that affect participation/ compliance with exercise intervention
• Terminal illness with </= 6 months to live
• Active treatment for cancer (systemic chemotherapy or radiotherapy, patients on oral chemotherapeutic agents/ checkpoint inhibitors will be eligible for inclusion)
• Nursing Home Resident
• Severe lower limb pain post-op
• Severe skin issues/ ulcers in non-operated lower limb that would preclude utilisation of ankle weights
• Swallowing disorders/ difficulty
• Renal impairment with eGFR <30
• Hepatic failure
• Patients with a dairy/ soy allergy