2.1. Participants
cognitive impairment, acute pain, fractures, VCFs, unstable fracture, trauma
We enrolled patients with acute VCFs aged >65 years who were admitted to the emergency unit of Nagasaki Memorial Hospital, Nagasaki, Japan. Patients who were eligible for enrolment in the study were diagnosed with acute vertebral fractures based on acute pain in the back and lower back regions, a deformed vertebral body on radiography, and abnormal intensity within the vertebral bodies on magnetic resonance imaging. All fractures were confirmed to have originated from low-energy trauma. Patients were excluded if they were diagnosed with an unstable fracture, which affected all three columns (e.g., chance and burst fractures), were transferred from other hospitals, were unable to walk independently with or without a walking aid before hospital admission, unable to complete the questionnaire due to cognitive impairment, had a Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score from 0 to 15, were defined as having moderately severe or severe cognitive impairment [