CANTON, MA--(MARKET WIRE)--Aug 1, 2007 -- Hip protectors are a promising intervention for the reduction of impact-related fractures in the elderly. Some 350,000 older people in the US fracture a hip each year. Hip protectors consist of underwear that places an energy-reducing pad over the hipbone. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has funded large clinical studies on a hip protector called FallGard at the Harvard University affiliated Hebrew Rehabilitation Center, University of Maryland, and Washington University. Last week JAMA published the study in which the authors seemed to be bewildered as to why more hip fractures occurred among those wearing the FallGard hip protector. However, an article in the February 2007 issue of the scientific journal Age & Ageing offers the answer by revealing that FallGard hip protectors do not actually cover the hipbone.
