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Biomedical subjects

T K Kakarlapudi

Publications and source records attributed to T K Kakarlapudi.

5 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2000

The cost of treatment of distal radial fractures.

In an increasingly cost conscious management of health care, estimating the cost of treatment of distal radial fractures has significant relevance. We studied 100 distal radial fractures, prospectively, from their presentation to eventual discharge. On an average, pound320.50 were spent on each patient during 1997. Ninety percent of the costs were seen to be service costs and only 10% were those of consumables. A proportion of costs incurred due to remanipulations could have been saved by supervised primary treatment. Also, lack of protocols resulted in increased use of clinic time, physiotherapy sessions and radiographs. In-patient treatment was seen to account for the bulk of the expenditure. We have identified certain guidelines to improve the primary treatment of these fractures and the possibility of treating them in designated sessions in the day surgery unit. This is likely to reduce the overall cost of treatment of these very commonly sustained fractures though this will need to be proved in a future validated study.

Accidental Falls↗
PubMed1999

Health-related quality of life of Colles' fracture patients.

Recent guidelines published by the National Osteoporosis Foundation (NOF) make extensive use of quality-adjusted life-years (QALYs). Crucial to these guidelines, therefore, are the assumptions that are made about the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) gained from the avoidance of osteoporotic fractures. This paper reports on a study in which 50 Colles' fracture patients were asked to describe their health at each visit during treatment using the EuroQol descriptive system and to value their own health using the visual analogue scale (VAS). By applying a set of population-derived valuations to the states reported by the patients, the QALY loss is shown to be about 2%. This is about half of the loss, based upon clinician judgement, that is contained in the NOF guidelines. In addition, the results suggest that it may be possible to use VAS scores to predict treatment requirements, since those patients who require fewer visits have, on average, higher initial VAS scores.

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