Mum has a muscle strain and having trouble walking. Took her to docs and he told her she must try and move as her muscles will waste away. She has low pain threshold since being diagnosed and does not seem to want to try and get over this. I just dont know what to do ad she lives alone. Maybe we will have to thinking about care homes sooner than we thought but mum has always insisted she loves her house.
Mum does not understand what kind of pain she has
- Thread starter Flossyp
- Start date
If she has a low pain threshold it could be that the pain is stopping her from trying to walk. Is she on some sort of pain relief? Does she try to walk but can't, or is she just not trying? Does she seem more agitated than usual? She might not be able to express that she is in pain so look for signs in her body language.
The doctor said to just have paracetamal and he thinks that she is tensing up and this makes it worse. Mum does seek attention Im afraid and would like to be pushed about in a wheelchair but doc said she needs to use her legs as all her joints move ok and i saw him test her for this and she said she had no pain. Its hard assess her really. If she gets no better in next few days i may need to see if they can xray her but she saw 2 doctors last week
Why do you think she might need an x-ray, did she have a fall/injury? My Mum was unable to stand/walk after a fall and the hospital stated that this was due to 'dementia'. Long story short but after insisting on an x-ray we subsequently discovered that she had a fractured spine. It took some 'trial & error' before the right type / amount of pain relief was given and Mum was able to walk again. A pain patch did not work for my Mum - she was severely over-sedated and stopped eating/drinking - so it's a balancing act, and what works for one person might not work for another. Your Mum might need something a bit stronger than paracetamol so worth going back to the GP if she hasn't improved in the next few days.
Mum did have fall on xmas eve but my daughter caught her to cushion impact a bit and she has been quite mobile ever since then so dont think this wouldbe the cause. Will keep an eye on her the next few days. Im hoping its just a case of her hyperchondria but theres always that chance its not. Its so difficult with dementia making things worse
if it's muscle strain @Flossyp , could you use a shaped wraparound support (if knee or ankle) or maybe a tubigrip to help support it for a bit, and maybe so that she feels something is being done for her, rather than it all being down to her? You or someone else would probably have to supervise putting it on and off (to make sure it's not too tight and that she takes it off at night) but if it reduces the pain maybe she'll be more likely to try the walking. I do sympathise, my FiL is not very motivated to walk and has been told by the physio he'll end up bedbound if he doesn't make an effort
For quite a long time, my mum went to a chiropractor, just for a 15 to a 25-minute session every 2 weeks. it cost £30 a time, but it made one hell of a difference to my mum's walking ability for quite some time.
At one time he noticed that my mum was beginning to have more than the usual kind of muscle problems etc, and did a few weekly visits to try and combat it. He then suggested that my mum should go to the doctor and suggest that perhaps she needed to have her hip looked at since it could need a replacement. She went through the usual procedure and nothing stuck out as being particularly bad with her hip. It didn't seem to be improving, so he suggested that it could be an idea for her to pay privately to get a second opinion from a specialist who dealt with joints problems. We knew him by now. trusted his opinion, and decided it would be worth at least going to get a second opinion even if it was pretty expensive.
Sure enough, the specialist not only noticed that she had a severe hip problem and would need a new hip, but that she also had a severe knee problem on the other leg as well. He then wrote a referral for my mum to take to her normal doctor, who could use that to have my mum shot up the list to have both things done on the NHS as it should be classed as a priority. Soon as possible after her hip was replaced and had recovered, she was sent to have her knee replaced.
My mum's walking did start to deteriorate pretty quickly over the last year, but she is going to be 96 next month. Prior to that she was still walking a lot.
At one time he noticed that my mum was beginning to have more than the usual kind of muscle problems etc, and did a few weekly visits to try and combat it. He then suggested that my mum should go to the doctor and suggest that perhaps she needed to have her hip looked at since it could need a replacement. She went through the usual procedure and nothing stuck out as being particularly bad with her hip. It didn't seem to be improving, so he suggested that it could be an idea for her to pay privately to get a second opinion from a specialist who dealt with joints problems. We knew him by now. trusted his opinion, and decided it would be worth at least going to get a second opinion even if it was pretty expensive.
Sure enough, the specialist not only noticed that she had a severe hip problem and would need a new hip, but that she also had a severe knee problem on the other leg as well. He then wrote a referral for my mum to take to her normal doctor, who could use that to have my mum shot up the list to have both things done on the NHS as it should be classed as a priority. Soon as possible after her hip was replaced and had recovered, she was sent to have her knee replaced.
My mum's walking did start to deteriorate pretty quickly over the last year, but she is going to be 96 next month. Prior to that she was still walking a lot.
