Background: Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) are subject to posture instability and falling. However, PD was not included as one of the risk factors in commonly used fracture risk calculation tools and the fracture rate in patients with PD was rarely reported. The aim of this study was to evaluate the risk of hip fracture in patients with PD.
Methods: Data were collected from the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan. The study group included 394 patients with PD diagnosed in 1999-2000. The comparison cohort was comprised of 3940 age- and sex-matched patients from the same enrollment period. All patients were tracked from their index visits for eight years.
Results: Hip fracture developed in 10.4% of patients with PD and 4.1% of patients in the comparison cohort during the follow-up period. Log-rank test analysis showed a significantly higher rate of hip fracture in PD. The Cox proportional regression model showed an adjusted hazard ratio of 2.71 (95% confidence interval = 1.92-3.83, P < 0.001) for patients with PD.
Conclusion: The hip fracture rate was as high as 10.4% in PD patients during 8 years follow-up period. While assessing the risk of hip fracture, PD should be taken into consideration. For those very high risk patients (elderly women with PD, osteoporosis, diabetes and diabetic neuropathy), many efforts should be made to prevent fracture.
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