Hip Pads to prevent hip fracture after a Stroke

Those who have had a stroke are at significant risk of falling, and one of the most common injuries sustained in a fall is a hip fracture.   (see “Don’t Fall!” for more information on how to prevent falling).

the KPH hip protector pad, at www.hiprotector.com

There are many types of hip protector pads available for helping to decrease your risk of hip fracture, if you DO happen to fall.  Most of them either help to absorb some of the impact of the fall, or spread this impact out over other areas of the hip and thigh (rather than one small isolated area of force on the greater trochanter or neck of the femur).

Some type of hip protectors are designed as a pair of underwear, with the protector pad built in.  Other types allow the protector pad to be removed from the underwear.  There are even some that are made for those with incontinence.

The following hip protectors were designed to wear outside of your clothing.

an easy to use hip guard belt, at www.hipguard.com

an easy to use hip protector, at www.jrsmedical.com

Do They Work?

A study in 2002 found that hip protector pads significantly reduced the amount of force transmitted to the hip bone in a fall.

In 1999, a study was published in the journal Bone, that compared 4 different types of hip protector pads in their ability to decrease the forces transferred to the bone during a fall.  Their results showed that, “of the four tested hip protectors, the anatomically designed energy-shunting and energy-absorbing KPH protectors can provide an effective impact force attenuation in a sideways-fall simulation in the elderly, whereas the force attenuation capacity of the two other protectors seems more limited.”

The New England Journal of Medicine published a study in 2000 that concluded hip protector pads do decrease the incidence of hip fractures in the elderly.  21 out of 1000 people wearing hip pads suffered a hip fracture when they fell, compared to 46 out of 1000 who did NOT wear protector pads.

In 2001, the journal Osteoporosis International published a study conducted on 164 elderly female residents of nursing homes in Japan.  The hip fracture rate was significantly lower among the wearers than non-wearers of hip protector pads, while the annual number of falls per subject remained the same.  It was thus concluded that the hip protector is a beneficial device for the prevention of hip fractures.

An article in the QJM:  An International Journal of Medicine in 2007, reviews strategies for preventing hip fractures specifically in stroke recoverers.

Here’s a cochrane database review that found the evidence was weak for using hip protector pads in the elderly to prevent hip fractures, possibly due to the fact that many people don’t use them consistently.  (If you fall, having a hip protector pad sitting on your night-stand isn’t going to help you…..they are a lot more effective on your hips!)