STUDY PROTOCOL The effect of a pre- and p

Full list of author information is available at the end of the articleBackground Falls and hip fracture in older people Approximately 30 % of home-dwelling people aged 65+ fall each year, and half of them fall twice or more. Ten percent of the falls result in serious injuries [1]. Multimor-bidity and frailty often complicate the assessment of falls amongst older people. Scandinavian countries have the highest reported incidence of hip fractures (cervical or trochanteric) in the world [2], 90 % of which are related to a fall. Hip fractures are associated with considerable mor-tality [3,4]. Due to the increasing number of older people, the demand for treatment, rehabilitation and care for hip fracture patients will increase steeply during the coming years. Older people with hip fracture after a fall have more comorbidity, dementia and physical disability than older people who fall without developing a fracture [5]. In a retrospective study carried out among patients surviving a hip fracture at Ullevaal University Hospital, the one-year mortality was 23%, and the number of insti