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Background. The incidence and etiology of falls in patients following hip fracture remains poorly understood. Methods. We prospectively investigated the incidence of, and risk factors for, recurrent and injurious falls in community-dwelling persons admitted for surgical repair of minimal-trauma hip fracture. Fall surveillance methods included phone calls, medical records, and fall calendars. Potential predictors of falls included health status, quality of life, nutritional status, body composition, muscle strength, range of motion, gait velocity, balance, walking endurance, disability, cognition, depression, fear of falling, self-efficacy, social support, physical activity level, and vision. Results. 193 participants enrolled in the study (81 [+ or -] 8 years, 72% women, gait velocity 0.3 [+ or -] 0.2 m/s). We identified 227 falls in the year after hip fracture for the 178 participants with fall surveillance data. Fifty-six percent of participants fell at least once, 28% had recurrent falls, 30% were injured, 12% sustained a new fracture, and 5% sustained a new hip fracture. Age-adjusted risk factors for recurrent and injurious falls included lower strength, balance, range of motion, physical activity level, quality of life, depth perception, vitamin D, and nutritional status, and greater polypharmacy, comorbidity, and disability. Multivariate analyses identified older age, congestive heart failure, poorer quality of life, and nutritional status as independent risk factors for recurrent and injurious falls. Conclusions. Recurrent and injurious falls are common after hip fracture and are associated with multiple risk factors, many of which are treatable. Interventions should therefore be tailored to alleviating or reversing any nutritional, physiological, and psychosocial risk factors of individual patients. Key Words: Falls--Hip fracture--Osteoporosis--Aging.

Background. Age-related hip fractures are associated with poor functional outcomes, resulting in substantial personal and societal burden. There is a need to better identify reversible etiologic predictors of suboptimal functional recovery in this group. Methods. The Sarcopenia and Hip Fracture (SHIP) study was a 5-year prospective cohort study following community-dwelling older persons admitted to three Sydney hospitals for hip fracture. Information was collected at baseline, and 4 anal 12 months, including health status, quality of life. nutritional status, body composition, muscle strength, range of motion, gait velocity, balance, walking endurance, disability, cognition, depression, fear of falling, self-efficacy, social support, physical activity level, vision, and fall-related data. with residential status, disability, and mortality reassessed at 5 years. Results. 193 participants enrolled (81 [+ or -] 8 years, 72% women). High levels of activities of daily living, disability and sedentariness were present prior to fracture. At admission, the cohort had high levels of chronic disease: 38% were depressed. 38% were cognitively impaired, and 26% had heart disease. Seventy-one percent of participants were sarcopenic. 58% undernourished, and 55% vitamin D deficient. Mobility, strength, and vision were severely impaired. There was little evidence that these comorbidities were either recognized or treated during hospitalization. Disability. sedentariness. malnutrition, and walking endurance predicted acute hospitalization length of stay. Conclusions. The complex comorbidity, pre-existing functional impairment, and sedentary behavior in patients with hip fracture suggest the need for thorough screening and targeting of potentially reversible impairments. Rehabilitation outcomes are likely to be highly dependent on amelioration of these highly prevalent accompaniments to hip fracture. Key Words: Body composition--Disability--Hip fracture--Sarcopenia.

Improvements have been made in the measurement of dose profiles in several types of X-ray beams. These include 120-kVp X-ray beams from an orthovoltage X-ray machine, 6-MV Bremsstrahlung from a medical LINAC in conformal mode and the 50-200 keV energy spectrum of microbeams produced at the medical beamline station of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility. Using a quadruple metal-oxide--semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) sensor chip in 'edge on' mode together with a newly developed sensor readout system, the feasibility of online scanning of the profiles of quasi-static and pulsed radiation beams was demonstrated. Measurements of synchrotron pulsed microbeams showed that a micrometer-scale spatial resolution was achievable. The use of several MOSFETs on the same chip gave rise to the correction of misalignments of the oxide films of the sensor with respect to the microbeam, ensuring that the excellent spatial resolution of the MOSFET used in 'edge-on' mode was fully utilized.

The application of MOSFET dosimeters in complicated mixed radiation fields for measurement of absorbed dose distribution in tissue equivalent phantoms has been studied. The spectra of secondary charged particles have been measured simultaneously with average absorbed doses by the same MOSFET dosimeter. A good correlation has been observed between neutron depth dose distribution in a water phantom obtained using MOSFETs in integral mode and a tissue equivalent (T.E.) ionisation chamber. Such MOSFET dosimeters are a promising tool for micro-macro dosimetry in Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) and Fast Neutron Therapy (FNT). Paired MOSFETs with one of the dosimeters covered by 10B have been applied for measuring of average boron dose distribution and microdosimetric spectra due to alpha particles and 7Li ions throughout a perspex phantom exposed in the epithermal neutron beam at the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor (BMRR).