Benefits of therapy?

psg712

My mom fell 3 weeks ago and sliced up her arm on a dresser drawer handle. She had multiple sutures and wore a bulky dressing for 2 weeks, then had sutures removed. No longer needs the dressing.

The injury appears to have healed well, for which i am grateful. She is no longer complaining of pain, not even during the suture removal. My concern now is her reluctance to use the arm and hand. She seems to believe that it no longer works!

She won't use it to push up from lying to sitting on her bed. She tries to push her walker with only one hand. When the MC staff or I see this, we remind her that she needs to use both hands. I usually have to take her hand and gently place it on the walker handle. At that point, she will walk correctly with both hands on the walker. Fortunately the injury was to her non-dominant arm, so she still uses fork and spoon to eat...though I notice she is starting to do better with finger foods. She does have Tylenol and ibuprofen available for pain, and the med techs offer it and administer when she answers that her arm hurts.

Would an OT referral be of benefit to her? Just to help her in using the injured arm again? She will not retain information or even the fact that they visited. She definitely won't be able to follow up with any exercises on her own. My reason for asking for a referral is mainly to get an assessment of her physical capabilities with the arm and ideas of how to help her. I have not been able to visit her much this week because my DH has been quite ill in the hospital. Another reason to be thankful for MC - I know she is being cared for there while I'm needed elsewhere.

Any suggestions?

M1

No, but hope your husband does okay. All these stresses are cumulative

​fesk

I think OT or PT may be beneficial. You won't know until you try. My mother is quite advanced and has one side she uses less. OT was helpful for her. I would think for it to have any impact with your mother, therapy would need to be at least 3 days per week (or someone else has to work with her for consistency). Also, as. you said, an evaluation may give you practical ideas on how to help her.

I am sorry to hear your husband is ill.

mabelgirl

my mom is in Al. She gets pt, ot and speech therapy. The benefit in my opinion is simply getting her to move. She likes attention thus these therapist focusing only on her is good for her. As long as insurance covers cost I’m grateful for it. I try not to expect things to improve with my mom, just let her live a content life.

psg712

Thanks everyone. Her facility doesn't have PT/OT on site. They use a home health company to provide these services. The health director was going to check on an OT referral last week. I'll check back with her tomorrow.

lizzyt

My mother has had therapy several times. Her insurance covers it mostly so I don't see any harm. If nothing else she is getting some interaction with people and movement she probably wouldn't do on her own. She actually seems more active and alert lately so maybe it does help.

psg712

Update: mom got the OT referral. The therapist who came to do her eval called me. In a puzzled tone she asked me, "what kind of work did your mother do? She didn't give me much information."

As patiently as I could, I explained that my mother does not recall anything about her work, her home, names of family members...nor will she retain anything that the OT tells her to do. They will need to share that information with me.

I want to be understanding but really. The sign outside the MC building might be a clue: Alzheimers and Demetia Care.

I tried to encourage mom to flex and extend her injured (healed) arm yesterday. She gave me a hostile glare and shook her other fist at me. So much for the benefits of OT!!!