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You and your mother deserve better.
Also , dismissing what you have found on the internet is contemptuous to say the least. Drs have to be prepared for what their patients find in magazines, internet, other media, and be respectful of the fact that the patient is doing their own research. If your mother keeps falling, she is at risk of a brain injury, and broken bones = pain, disability, morbidity !
Look for a more competent and intelligent Dr. Good luck. I hope your mother gets the support she deserves. Years ago, I worked with a Dr who told me that he always subscribed to the Reader's Digest, so he kept up with the illnesses that his patients would have next month. ( RD used to have an article ' I am Joe's or Jill's kidney / liver / thyroid etc.' )
- - - Falling backwards? Not speaking, swallowing, reading, or walking well? Mom had it all plus seizures. Research PSP (Progressive Supranuclear Palsy), rare, and commonly misdiagnosed as the look-alike Parkinsons. Her dr offered pills, her neurologist offered mind deadening seizure meds and used the word Alzheimers. We found a new dr (never too late!) who referred us to an informed GERIATRIC neurologist. He was well worth the 2 hr drive and 5 min office visit for correct diagnosis. Mom matched every PSP symptom we found online. No, there is no treatment. But YES, huge relief to finally have an answer, to know what was going on w Mom, and what we could expect for the future. We let go of the worry, frustration, the running around for help from the help-less. Our last 3 years were spent enjoying and making the most of the time we had.
TerryinParadise
I would be interested in knowing if anyone else has observed this.
And I have to agree it takes someone special to do a good job with a less cooperative patient in therapy - we see that when "grown-up" PT or OT tries to work with young kids too, they don't know how to cajole or play along and get people to do what they need them to do if they don't follow verbal commands, and that's a shame because good therapy can increase strength and function and reduce pain substantially. Sitting still and letting muscles weaken is about the worst thing you can do for arthritic joints, yet that's what most of our elder's instinctively do when a joint hurts!
The authors are geriatricians, internists and a neurologist. Hardly an anonymous person mouthing off about something they know nothing about.
I found this article to be informative and probitive. Yes, you will have to look up a lot of medical terms to get the most out of it.
What it lacks is specific recommendations for therapy. My Mother is 87 and has just started falling backwards recently. This started shortly after there was a major change in her posture - she leans severely to the right when sitting, standing and walking, with or without her walker and is hunched way over. All of that started about 2 months after she fell backwards and fractured her sacrum, which caused severe pain.
In addition to an understanding of what causes this, we need to be able to do things that will help our parents who have this problem. We need to be reassuring, encouraging, kind and patient. Even if there is no improvement, imagine how it must feel like to be at least trying to do something about your bewildering and scary falls. My mother has kind, loving nurses aides who would faithfully carry out any instructions for physical therapy that might help her.
She is beyond being able to comprehend what a physical therapist is asking her to do. She had one or 2 good ones, but the others were impatient when she did not progress as quickly as a younger person would. My heart goes out to the last poster who;s therapist recommended that her mother's therapy be discontinued. Therapy shouldn't just take place in a therapy facility. Physical therapy needs to include providing the patient with things to do at home, whether there is significant improvement or not.
So what will I be doing about my Mom's problem? I will not be hauling her around to a lot of different specialists or subjecting her to a lot of tests that provide no direct benefit in terms of alleviating her condition. It seems like we are all agreed on that point. I will take her to her orthopedist, who has handled her sacral fractures and let him observe the changes in her posture.
So. We have no definitive treatment or even a complete understanding of what is going on. I alleviate my own frustration and anxiety by reading and trying to understand. I am going to press the orthopedist hard for things to do that will at least make things no worse or cause harm.
And if you want your doctor to pay attention to an article you feel may be important to your parent's care or treatment, make a copy of it and take it with you to the appointment.
Bless you all for caring.
But I'd want to know if there are other possible causes for the problem, and whether any of them are treatable. How could those alternate causes (if there are any) be tested for?
I guess that is where your internet research comes in. Are there reputable sources that list other causes and more importantly other treatments?
Im sure that getting a label for this problem is not your goal. You just want to know what can be done to keep Mom from falling over backwards, right? If your resarch (including posting your question here) gives you reason to think this might be treatable, depending on the cause, then getting a second opinion makes a lot of sense.
Good luck!