stairs

Susan K.

Good morning,

My dad was doing well getting up a full flight of stairs with minimal assistance for the past year.  All of a sudden, he is just collapsing on the first or second stair.  Is this sudden change in ability normal?  

Does anyone have suggestions for how we can help him?  Should the focus be on trying to get him stronger or adapting to the new situation? Are there ways to offer additional assistance on stair climbing?

Thanks so much!

RIM

It’s not normal to become weak rather quickly.  It could be his heart, or a number of things.  My father got severely weak over 5 days. The weakness was caused by internal bleeding, he was hospitalized, then returned to normal in a few days

Susan K.

Thanks for your help.  We will contact his doctor on Monday.

harshedbuzz

Susan-

If the loss of stair climbing was sudden, I would suggest a visit to his PCP to rule out some other cause like a UTI, anemia or cardiac issue. 

If the difficulty is the result of dementia progression, may be past a point where working to improve his strength is really doable unless he's typically compliant. We brought PT in to work with dad in early stage 6; dad didn't cooperate with doing his exercises unless the PT was there, so he was discharged from care.

Unless this is fixable, you may need to make the need to use stairs go away by moving him to a single level.

HB

M1

My only other thought it that sometimes a visual perception problem can make stairs or dark floors challenging--I've heard of putting brightly colored tape on the riser edges to make them more easily visible.  Is he walking okay on flat surfaces?

MN Chickadee

It's always good to rule out UTI or other issues when there is a sudden change. However once that is done if they don't find anything it can just be the progression of the disease. My mother took a sudden decline on mobility. Over the course of a few days she had numerous falls and it's like her brain forgot how to walk. She began shuffling and had poor balance and never improved. It was useless to try to give instruction, the body and brain just couldn't do it. It could be it's time to rearrange the house to keep him on one level or move him.

OutsideLookingIn

M1, I thought of depth perception, too, when I first read this, but upon rereading, it didn't sound as much like he fell as just collapsed.  Would like further clarification on this part.

OLI