Comparative study between choices of preoperative and post operative dress wear among orthopedics patients

Abstract

Background: Clothes are identity of an individual. A monk, a priest, a doctor, a lawyer etc. all can be identified by clothing. But can we identify preoperative and postoperative orthopedics patient simply by difference in clothing? Can we evaluate the reasons for this difference in clothing mainly due to hide surgical scar or may be due to comfort fit or may be due to compensation of gait abnormalities etc. Methods: The study was conducted at Maharaja Agrasen medical college, India with a population of 1000 OPD and indoor patient for a period of 6 months from January 2022 to June 2022, with data collection and compilation for another 3 months. Our study is an observational retrospective study which discovers where pre trauma preference is for skin tight clothing like jeans, t shirt for men and skirt for girls, post trauma post operative preference shifts to loose and formal clothes like full sleeves shirt, formal pant, pajama, lungi, dhoti for men and full length skirt for girl and saree for women. Results: Causes enlisted for such clothing was hiding surgical scar (80%), comfortable fitting (10%), to hide gait abnormalities (7%), limb length discrepancies (2%), miscellaneous (1%). Conclusions: We claim to be first in literature to have thought and research on this wonderful topic. We claim to devise new system of surgical and non-surgical wear in post operative patients with our research. We also bring out reason for such difference in clothing and work closely with our in-house patient for preference in clothing.