Risk Factors Associated With Fragility Fracture Among Older Adults With Fragility Fracture: A Systematic Review

Fragility and Resilience: Stories of Recovering From Hip Fractures in the Oldest-Old Age

This study uses a narrative approach to explore the experiences of adults in the oldest stage of old age after they suffered a hip fracture. The focus was on participants' perceptions and descriptions of the traumatic event, the recovery process, and the impact of the fracture on their lives. The study had a longitudinal design and included interviews with 10 participants (mean age 89) who had suffered hip fractures. Up to three semi-structured interviews were conducted with each of the participants (a total of 27 interviews) over a 3-month period. The first interviews were at the hospital, the second at municipal rehabilitation facilities, and the third at the participants' homes. The material was analysed by means of narrative analysis. The results show how the incident affected the participants' active and meaningful lives and how they seemed to mobilise their resources and motivation to train and recover to be able to come back home and resume the life they had before the hip fracture. The study provides nuances in the understanding of how a hip fracture can impact lives in old age. The stories emphasise the resources and capacity for resilience elderly people can possess and the importance of listening to the individual life stories, situation, personal goals, and needs when planning services for elderly people recovering from a hip fracture.

Handgrip Strength Is Positively Associated with 24-hour Urine Creatine Concentration

BACKGROUND

Muscle mass evaluation methods are often expensive and therefore limited in their daily use in clinical practice. In this study, we investigated the relationship between hand grip strength (HGS) and other parameters of body measurements with urine creatinine, especially to investigate whether HGS measurement is an indicator of muscle metabolism.

METHODS

In total, 310 relatively healthy people (mean age 47.8 + 9.6; 161 people or 51.9% of the total population were men) who were undergoing preventive examinations were included in this study and given a container to collect 24-h urine, and the amount of creatinine in the urine was determined by a kinetic test without deproteinization according to the Jaffe method. A digital dynamometer (Takei Hand Grip Dynamometer, Japan) was used in the measurement of HGS.

RESULTS

There was a significant difference in 24-h urine creatinine (24 hCER) between the sexes, with a mean of 1382.9 mg/24 h in men and 960.3 mg/24 h in women. According to the correlation analysis, the amount of urine creatinine was related to age (r = -0.307, p < 0.001 in men, r = -0.309, p < 0.001 in women), and HGS (r = 0.207, p = 0.011 in men, r = 0.273, p = 0.002 in women) was significant for either sex. However, other parameters of body measurements, such as girth, forearm circumference, and muscle mass measured by bioelectrical impedance, were not related to urine 24 hCER. A correlation between HGS and 24 hCER was observed in age groups.

CONCLUSIONS

We found that HGS is a potential marker in muscle metabolism assessment that is proven through 24 hCER. In addition, therefore, we suggest using the HGS measure in clinical practice to evaluate muscle function and well-being.