Hip fractures in the county of Funen, Denmark. Implications of demographic aging and changes in incidence rates.

In patients 40 years and above a total of 3096 hip fractures (783 in males and 2313 in females) occurred in the entire county of Funen, Denmark from 1 July 1973 to 30 June 1979. The incidence of hip fractures increased exponentially with age in both sexes. During the survey the number of hip fractures in females showed a marked increase above what could be explained by demographic aging alone, whereas this tendency was not so pronounced in males. Provided the observed increase in incidence rates prevails, aging of the population in combination with this increase will lead to a threefold increase in the number of hip fractures over a 20-year period. This is substantially more than other Scandinavian authors have reported.