Citation

Felcher SM, Stinner DJ, Krueger CA, Wilken JM, Gajewski DA, Hsu JR. Mil. Med. 2015; 180(10): 1083-1086.

Affiliation

Department of Orthopaedics and Rehabilitation, San Antonio Military Medical Center, 3851 Roger Brooke Drive, Fort Sam Houston, TX 78234.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Association of Military Surgeons of the United States)

DOI

10.7205/MILMED-D-14-00450

PMID

26444471

Abstract

Falls occur in up to 50% of amputees within a single year of their operation and up to 40% of these falls result in injury. However, there is a lack of data evaluating falls in a young, active amputee population despite an estimated 58% of persons living with an amputation being under the age of 65. The authors evaluated an amputee population (n = 393) with a mean age of 25.53 years. Overall incidence, prevalence, fall characteristics, and risk factors were calculated for falls resulting in rehospitalization. An incidence of 1.92 per 1,000 person years with a prevalence of 2.04% was found with 87.5% occurring within the first 6 months following definitive amputation. Of the patients rehospitalized, 75% required at least 1 surgical procedure. Infectious complications had the most significant morbidity requiring a mean of 5 operative procedures. Those that delayed evaluation (mean = 13 days) vs. those that presented 0 to 1 day from a fall were significantly more at risk of an infectious complication (p = 0.03). This study is the first to report such a relationship, and emphasizes the need for at-risk patients to seek early medical attention as this may minimize the risk of infection and obviate the need for surgical intervention.

Language: en