Managing Pain from a Broken Hip

Read a medical journal article on the challenges of managing pain from a broken hip. Author Anthony Sanzone, MD reviewed 83 studies on pain management for patients with a hip fracture. He concludes that there are not enough well-designed studies to be totally confident which pain management approaches work well after hip fracture surgery. Further, he states that “the prevailing opioid-dependent model of analgesia presents multiple drawbacks and risks that can compromise outcomes in the hip fracture population. Other interventions, such as nerve blocks and multimodal analgesia, should therefore be considered.”  “Current Challenges in Pain Management in Hip Fracture Patients”, published in the Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma, May 2016.