This prospective descriptive correlational study investigated an often overlooked clinical condition in older adults, sensory impairment. The study specifically addressed vision and hearing impairment in hospitalised older adults who had sustained a hip fracture.

Sensory impairments affect older adults' ability to interact with and navigate safely in their environment, as demonstrated by the high prevalence of sensory impairment in this sample of hip fracture patients as compared with the general population of community-dwelling older adults.

In this study 332 older adults were screened for vision and hearing impairment using the RAI-AC and the KAS-Screen. These self-report measures were completed by a research nurse. Of the 332 patients screened, 279 (83.7%) were found to have some level of sensory impairment. Of those who screened positive for sensory impairment, 186 were further evaluated with vision testing, including visual acuity, peripheral vision, central field vision and binocular stereo depth perception. Ears were checked for cerumen. …