FICB for Hip Fracture Pain in Elderly

Hip fracture is a common injury in elderly patients, often requiring surgical treatment. However, these patients frequently experience severe postoperative pain, which can delay mobility and recovery, and increase the risk of complications such as delirium, pneumonia, and prolonged hospital stay.

The fascia iliaca compartment block (FICB) is a regional anesthesia technique that has been shown to provide effective pain relief for hip fracture patients. This study aims to investigate whether early administration of FICB, performed upon hospital admission before surgery, can improve postoperative rehabilitation outcomes in elderly patients with hip fracture.

This is a prospective, randomized, controlled study. A total of 144 elderly patients with hip fracture will be randomly assigned to either the FICB group or the control group. The FICB group will receive ultrasound-guided FICB after being admitted to the orthopaedic ward, while the control group will receive standard analgesic care once inside the operating room.

The primary outcome measure is Quality of Recovery-15 score (QoR-15 score) 24 hours post-surgery. Secondary outcomes include: QoR-15 score at 48 hours postoperatively, NRS scores and sleep duration and quality scores at preoperative and various postoperative time points, total perioperative consumption of opioids and other analgesic drugs, extubation time and emergence agitation during anesthesia recovery period, incidence of delirium from postoperative period to before discharge, length of hospital stay, and overall satisfaction score with pain management.

The hypothesis of this study is that early FICB intervention, compared to standard care, will lead to better pain control, earlier mobilization, shorter hospital stay, and improved overall postoperative recovery in elderly patients with hip fracture.