Hip Injury Lawyers

Some of the more common hip injuries include hip fracture (broken hip), hip dislocation, and avascular necrosis:

Hip Fracture

A broken hip is a serious and potentially life-threatening injury. Hip fractures hospitalize over 300,000 people in the US each year. The majority of patients are elderly and female, but hip fractures can happen to those of both sexes at any age.

The most common causes of hip fracture include:

• Motor vehicle accidents
• Slip and falls
• Certain sports
• Bone tumors

Additional risk factors include:

• Osteoporosis - a condition in which bone strength is decreased so that they become fragile and break easily. It is due to an excessive loss of protein and mineral content, especially calcium.
• Osteomalacia - a disease in which bones become weak and soft due to a deficiency in calcium or vitamin D. Occurs mostly in adult women with
• A slight build
• An inactive lifestyle

The two main kinds of hip fracture are femoral neck fractures, in which the ball-and-socket joint brakes off the femur (thighbone), and intertrochanteric fractures, which occur below the upper thighbone. Femoral neck fractures often require hip replacement while intertrochanteric fractures are more frequently stabilized with plates and screws.

Surgery is often preferred in part because it tends to diminish the likelihood of the many complications that can follow hip fractures. With persistent physical therapy, recovery often takes from 3-15 months.

Hip Dislocation

The most common cause of hip dislocation is direct force trauma to the thigh (such as that in an auto accident or fall), although it can also be caused by a congenital condition and femoral head or acetabular dysplasia. Relatively minor trauma can cause a hip dislocation in a child.

Prosthetic hips can also dislocate, often due to ageing of the device or to improper surgery and rehabilitation.

Avascular Necrosis

Also known as osteonecrosis, ischemic bone necrosis, and aseptic (bone) necrosis, this disease is marked by dying bone tissue due to a lack of blood supply, causing the bone to collapse. The pathology is not fully understood, and the loss of blood supply to the bone can be temporary or permanent, but avascular necrosis is thought to be caused and/or contributed to by:

• Alcoholism
• Excessive steroid use
• Decompression sickness (caisson disease)
• Vascular compression
• Hypertension (high blood pressure)
• Vasculitis (inflammation of blood vessels)
• Thrombosis (blood clot)
• Post trauma
• Damage from radiation
• Bisphosphonates (although they cause necrosis mostly in the mandible)
• Sickle cell anaemia
• Gaucher's Disease (a chronic congenital disease)
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Certain types of lupus

Most hip injuries require surgery and intensive physical therapy that tends to be lengthy and costly. Hip injuries also tend to involve great deal of physical and mental pain and anguish. If the negligence of another caused or contributed to the injury, you may need the help of a competent and compassionate personal injury attorney with successful experience representing plaintiffs in hip injury cases.