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Jamie
As to needing oxygen being short or long term, you'll probably have to raise the issue of oxygen weaning with her pulmonary doctor. Do you know if any oxygen weaning took place in the hospital? If not, it'll be up to you to address the issue.
Is she going to be getting home therapy? If so, ask the nurse about the weaning. In the meantime, get a good pulse ox to measure her SAT rate and start keeping track of it, when she's resting, walking around, and especially when she's more active. That kind of log can help her pulmonary doctor determine her short and perhaps long term need for it.
That doctor can also perform tests during an office visit to gauge her pulmonary capacity.
It wouldn't surprise me if this hospitalization was overwhelming for her, and she needs the rest to give her body time to acclimate. I think she should have PT, but perhaps she's not ready for it, and having a PT as well as nurse, occupational therapist, possibly an aide, might be just too much right now.
One thing she can do is strengthen her arms by using a little device similar to bicycle wheels. It's essentially the pedal function and can be used not only for arm strengthening but for leg strengthening. If she is getting home care, ask about her being able to use that until she gets PT.
Building her arm strength will help her get out of a chair more safely. And if no one's raised the issue, she should scoot to the edge of her chair and push up with her arms to get out of the chair. Sometimes seniors try to get up while sitting with their back to the chair, and hurling themselves up. That's a bad move.
Is there any way you can move her bed or create a semi-bedroom on the first floor so she doesn't have to climb stairs? That's a real challenge if not danger to someone unsteady on her feet. If you have a bathroom on the first floor, create an area for her to sleep on that floor w/o having the extra challenge of climbing stairs, apparently attached to a long tube connected to an oxygen concentrator.
If you need input on a dysphagia diet requiring puree foods, just let us know. Some of us have (and I currently am) going through that now. There are a few tricks that can be used, such as using gravy and juice to make foods easier to puree.
And tackling that can also be depressing to someone, because it takes away much of the pleasure of chewing while eating. So she's dealing with pneumonia recovery, limited mobility, oxygen use and some level of dysphagia, apparently none of which she had before she was hospitalized.
That's enough to slow anyone down and impede a recovery. She'll need a lot of support during this period.
My 94 year old mom was hospitalized briefly 6 weeks ago with a UTI and has not made any improvement - she is in bed some 15+ hours a day now and needs a lift to be transferred
Medicare covered minimal physical therapy and she didnt really make any progress - it's as if she had a stroke and she too is now on purée for choking
So hard to go from being able to stand and walk a bit to being bedridden almost overnight
Hope your mom regains her strength
Eyerishlass - thanks for telling me not to force the exercises. I am also of the mind to let her rest as needed, but she is now really having trouble on the stairs, and it makes everything so much harder so fast. "If you take your mom through the exercises" - ha! will try, but she is stubborn and won't do exercise for exercise's sake. Will try, though. thank you.
When your mom was in the hospital did the nurses get her up to walk regularly? They may not have and I'm thinking that could account for your mom's decline in mobility.
When we get sick we feel awful for a few days but we bounce back. When an elderly person gets sick it can have a cumulative effect on them. Your mom may not bounce back to where she was before she got sick but there are things you can do to help her such as light PT on her legs and standing exercises at the sink. If you're unfamiliar with these exercises talk to her Dr.'s office but make sure your mom is feeling up to it first. Get her cleared through her Dr.
Don't force the exercises. There are passive exercises she can do from a sitting position if she's still weak from the pneumonia. If you take your mom through them on a regular basis her strength and mobility may improve a little bit. It definitely won't hurt.
Have you met with a speech - language pathologist to address the cause of her choking? Are you following up with her respirologist?