earticle

영어

Progressive, individualized, and intensive rehabilitation programs play an important role in improving functional impairments after total hip arthroplasty (THA) in older adults with hip fractures. This study aimed to investigate the effects of disability-oriented intensive physiotherapy on pain, motor function, and activities of daily living (ADL) in elderly inpatients undergoing THA for hip fractures. A total of 43 elderly inpatients who underwent THA for hip fractures were recruited for this retrospective study from January 2022 to October 2023 in an intensive rehabilitation hospital in the Republic of Korea. All participants received disability-oriented intensive physiotherapy for a total of 208 sessions (6–8 sessions/day, 30 minutes/session, 7 days/week) over 4 weeks during hospitalization. Pain, lower extremity muscle strength, balance, functional ambulation ability, and ADL were assessed using the numeric rating scale (NRS), manual muscle testing (MMT), berg balance scale (BBS), functional ambulation category (FAC), and modified barthel index (MBI), respectively. A paired t-test was used to analyze changes in dependent variables following intervention. All dependent variables, including NRS (pain), MMT (lower extremity muscle strength), BBS (balance), FAC (functional ambulation ability), and MBI (ADL) scores, revealed significant differences between the pre-test and post-test (p=.000–.005). Our findings suggest that disability-oriented intensive physiotherapy for patients who underwent THA is an effective protocol for improving physical function or reducing THA immobilization-related functional impairments. Therefore, this physiotherapy protocol should be encouraged in skilled inpatient rehabilitation facilities.