LGH orthopaedic team plays key role in hip fracture study
Dolores Langford, Physiotherapy Practice Coordinator at LGH and Principal investigator of a recently published study titled Back to the future – feasibility of recruitment and retention to patient education and telephone follow-up after hip fracture, is saluting the dedicated members of the Lions Gate Hospital’s orthopaedic team who played a key role in the research on seniors recovering from hip fractures.
The study, published last month in the journal Patient Preference and Adherence, was a pilot randomized trial aimed at improving communication and self management in older adults transitioning home from hospital after hip fracture.
Study participants were North Shore adults over 60 years of age admitted to LGH with a hip fracture. The intervention included usual care for hip fracture plus a one-hour in-hospital educational session using a patient-centered educational manual and four videos, and up to five post-discharge telephone calls from a physiotherapist to provide recovery coaching. The control group received usual care plus a one-hour in-hospital educational session using the educational manual and videos.
The LGH team included Clinical Nurse educator Jayne Lehn (6 west orthopaedics), Sonya Bains, Patient Care Co-ordinator, Occupational Therapist Maeve Frost, research Physiotherapist Nina Sharpe, Home Health Physiotherapist researcher Monique Ledoyen, OrthopaedicSurgeon Kostas Pangiotoupoulos, and Corrie Irwin, Manager.
Steps to recovery after a hip fracture: OT Maeve Frost focuses on restoring function in older adults after a fall and a hip fracture.
Successful recruitment rate due to diligent, coordinated team
“It was a very well-coordinated team, and our very successful recruitment rate was due to the diligence of the orthopaedic team members and their commitment to the study,” says Dolores.
Although the data collection phase for the study lasted seven months “the team was active well before the trial began, working on the patient education material, and trialling it prior to the study,” says Dolores.
These patient education materials were subsequently adopted by the BC Hip Fracture redesign team for patient education in hospitals across B.C., and have now been translated into Punjabi and Chinese. They are available here: http://www.hiphealth.ca/blog/FReSHStart
The study (published by Dove Press) was made possible by a grant from the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and the North Shore Health Research Foundation. Special thanks goes out to mentor Dr. Maureen Ashe for supporting the team as novice researchers.