A hip protector is a specialized form of pants or underwear containing pads (either hard or soft) along the outside of each hip/leg, designed to prevent hip fracture

Hip fracture

A hip fracture is a femoral fracture that occurs in the proximal end of the femur , near the hip.The term "hip fracture" is commonly used to refer to four different fracture patterns and is often due to osteoporosis; in the vast majority of cases, a hip fracture is a fragility fracture due to a...

s following a fall. They are most commonly used in elderly individuals who have a high risk of falls and hip fractures (for example, due to history of a previous fall and underlying osteoporosis

Osteoporosis

Osteoporosis is a disease of bones that leads to an increased risk of fracture. In osteoporosis the bone mineral density is reduced, bone microarchitecture is deteriorating, and the amount and variety of proteins in bone is altered...

).

Most hip fractures follow an impact due to a lateral fall. The pads are located over the trochanters, the bony extrusions of the hip region.

Hip protectors are either of the "crash helmet type" or "energy-absorbing type". The "crash helmet type" distributes impacts into the surrounding soft tissue, while the "energy-absorbing type" is made of a compressible material and diminishes the force of impact. Both of these systems aim to reduce the focused force beneath an estimated fracture threshold.

Several different commercially available hip protectors exist, such as the Safehip (Tytex A/S, Ikast, Denmark), the AHIP Protector (Astrotech, Vienna, Austria) and the KPH hip protector (HRA Pharma, Paris, France). The former has been used in most clinical trials. Hip protectors have the advantage of having no important adverse effects.

Clinical studies

Clinical trial

Clinical trials are a set of procedures in medical research and drug development that are conducted to allow safety and efficacy data to be collected for health interventions...

 of their effectiveness have shown conflicting results. A systematic review from 2006 found that that hip protectors are only marginally effective for preventing hip fracture among nursing home residents, and not effective among community dwelling elderly individuals. A recent randomized trial was discontinued because it failed to demonstrate any benefit. A Bayesian meta-analysis

Meta-analysis

In statistics, a meta-analysis combines the results of several studies that address a set of related research hypotheses. In its simplest form, this is normally by identification of a common measure of effect size, for which a weighted average might be the output of a meta-analyses. Here the...

 showed a decreased risk of hip fractures in elderly nursing home residents.

However, acceptance

Acceptance

Acceptance is a person's agreement to experience a situation, to follow a process or condition without attempting to change it, protest, or exit....

and long-term compliance towards them is quite low, mainly because of discomfort, dislike of their appearance by the person wearing it, and disagreement about fracture risk. A recent study showed that hip protectors' design and mechanical properties vary drastically among commercially available hip protectors.