Assessment of Quality of Life among Elderly Patients with Femoral Neck Fractures Surgically Treated by Partial Hip Arthroplasty

INTRODUCTION Medical science, in the past few years, has presented a convergence towards studies addressing quality of life. With time, some typical diseases of age groups emerge and, among the ones most affecting elderly individuals, the femoral neck fracture can be mentioned(1). The mean age for femoral neck fractures is 75-80 years for women, being a little lower among men: 70-75 years. Surgical treatment reduces the incidences of morbidity and mortality resultant from femoral neck fractures. In stable fractures, many times, fixation preserving femoral head is possible, but, in unstable ones, the use of total or partial hip arthroplasty may be necessary. There are a number of studies correlating outcomes of femoral neck fracture treatment to the surgical technique employed(2-9) but descriptions addressing postoperative quality of life of patients submitted to surgical treatment are scarce. Many indexes or tools have been used in order to evaluate quality of life of patients with the most variable diseases. These tools may be divided into two groups: generic and specific. In our literature review, we couldn’t find publications addressing quality of life of patients with femoral neck fractures submitted to Thompson’s prosthesis insertion. This study is aimed to assess the quality of life of elderly ASSESSMENT OF QUALITY OF LIFE AMONG ELDERLY PATIENTS WITH FEMORAL NECK FRACTURES SURGICALLY TREATED BY PARTIAL HIP ARTHROPLASTY