During the past year, the High Specialty Medical Unit (UMAE) Traumatology, Orthopedics and Rehabilitation Hospital “Dr. Victorio de la Fuente Narváez”, has performed more than 2,300 hip fracture surgeries, thus becoming the one that performs the most interventions of this type within the Mexican Social Security Institute (IMSS).
Its general director, Fryda Medina Rodríguez, pointed out that hip fractures have increased exponentially. Proof of this is that, in her unit, 208 patients are treated monthly.
It is intended to reduce programming times for hip fracture surgery
Due to the above, Social Security launched the National Strategy of “OrthoGeriatricIMSS” with the objective of offering a better quality of care to patients aged 65 and over who present hip fractures.
In addition, it is intended to reduce the programming times for surgery, the availability of beds, reduce the days of stay and thus avoid short and long-term complications.
This project began with the course “Strategy for the formation of Orthogeriatrics units” that was taught at the UmAE, Dr. Vitorio de la Fuente, which was attended by 66 specialists in orthopedics and geriatrics from 33 IMSS hospitals (traumatology, regional and area), which cover 80% of hip fracture surgeries in the country.
Preventive physical rehabilitation could prevent falls
What is clear is that the country is late in terms of disease prevention and well-being in the elderly population and, as time goes by, more people are added who would benefit from this approach in medicine.
As Armando Tonatiuh Ávila García, coordinator of the Rehabilitation Module of the International Congress of Advances in Medicine, has expressed: “We are definitely late… we still have a lot to do, as usually happens in Mexico in medicine in general, preventive rehabilitation not only corresponds to to the elderly although it is a trend all over the world today”.
Preventive physical rehabilitation could prevent falls, which are the most common cause of hip fracture worldwide, and hip fracture care in Mexico represents about 112,000 pesos for each patient. It is estimated that in the world, by the year 2025, there will be 2.6 million hip fractures and this number will triple by the year 2050, with six and a half million.