Orthogeriatric and Fragility Fracture Nursing: An Introduction

Abstract

Caring for people following a fragility fracture is often a complex, medium- to long-term undertaking with several phases from acute care through to rehabilitation and secondary fracture prevention. Fragility fractures can have a substantial impact on older peoples’ longer term function, place of residence and quality of life, sometimes leading to long-term residential or end-of-life care.Health professionals caring for patients following fragility fracture are required to provide evidence-based care and coordinate interdisciplinary care. Not all ‘care’ is provided by those professionals who are identified as nurses, and in the future the boundaries of care-giving roles are likely to be more flexible. For these reasons, this book, although focused on nursing (because a significant amount of fragility facture/orthogeriatric care is provided by them), aims to broaden its relevance to all healthcare professionals who provide care in any part of the world.Avoiding the devastating impacts of fragility fractures drives the need to prevent fractures through secondary fracture prevention. This prevention care is lifelong and usually delivered and monitored by a primary care team including general practitioners, nurses, physiotherapists and other specialist practitioners. The pathway of care is, therefore, dynamic and involves the collaboration of many individuals and agencies.Fragility fractures are important indicators that there may be undiagnosed osteoporosis that requires treatment to prevent further fractures. If left untreated, osteoporosis and associated bone fragility can, ultimately, lead to significant injuries such as hip or femoral fractures, which will require hospital admission and surgery, and severely threaten an individual’s health and well-being. This presents significant challenges for clinical teams in every care setting.The aim of this chapter is to introduce the reader to orthogeriatric and fragility fracture care and to both familiarise them with the multiple topics covered in this book and support the interdisciplinary care team in achieving optimal recovery of independent function and quality of life, with no further fractures for all people with fragility fractures.