About Us

Every year more than 22,000 Australians break their hip, with this number expected to grow to 60,000 by 2050.

Early movement and walking is key to enabling people to reduce their hospital and rehabilitation stays and return to day to day life, however historically the amount of physical activity performed by patients who have had a hip fracture whilst in hospital is low.

Previous research showed that patients spent up to 99% of time lying or sitting and took an average of only 36 steps a day, and that the amount of physiotherapy received relates to the amount of physical activity undertaken.

Barwon Health is proud to be taking part in the “HIPSTER: HIP fracture Supplemental Therapy to Enhance Recovery” randomised controlled trial. This research is a multi-site Australian trial funded by NHMRC that investigates the effects of a more intensive early physiotherapy program on the recovery of patients with hip fractures.

Rupert Sangster (pictured, right), physiotherapist, is the Principal Investigator at Barwon Health, supported by Peter Schoch (pictured, left) and Katelyn Bailey (Physiotherapists). The entire Barwon Health physiotherapy department plays a key role in delivering both usual care to all hip fracture patients, plus the additional physiotherapy sessions to the patients in the study. Long term follow up and data collection is also done by members of the physiotherapy team.

The team will track the progress of patients in terms of their total hospital length of stay (acute and rehabilitation), as well as physical mobility, health-related quality of life and falls at 6 weeks, 120 days and 12 months. Health care costs will also be assessed over a 12-month follow-up period. The study commenced in early 2023 and is expected run until the end of 2025.

To find out more about the HIPSTER Study, contact Rupert Sangster at [email protected] or Peter Schoch at [email protected]