Technically, hip fractures include pelvic fractures near the hip, acetabular, femoral head, femoral neck, intertrochanteric, and subtrochanteric fractures. More often than not, the term "hip fracture" is used when describing a fracture of the intertrochanteric, femoral neck, or subtrochanteric region in an older patient.
Fractures of the femoral neck have a bimodal distribution with young patients subjected to high energy trauma and older patients sustaining low energy falls. Intertrochanteric fractures occur more often in the elderly. On average the patient with the intertrochanteric fracture is 12 years older than the patient with the femoral neck fracture. Data indicate the trocanteric fractures are more associated with osteoporosis than neck fractures
. Subtrochanteric fractures also occur in young and old populations. Hip fractures are increasing rapidly due to the rise in the elderly population. Approximately 1.7 million hip fractures occur each year in the world