My Mother is 96 years old and is diabetic, has high cholesterol and high blood pressure. She has been living alone all these years until recently. She fell down 5 times this week. She has no strength in her legs. We took her to urgent care where she had a cat scan and 10 different x ray done of her body. She is coherent but is not able to walk. She complains about pain in her arms and under arms, legs and ankles-like a burning feeling. What can it be?
Arthritic changes can cause bony growths to press against the spinal cord interrupting messages from the brain. The legs themselves are not "weak", but may simply fail to receive nerve impulses from the brain that allow them to properly support the body. It can be puzzling because there may be no significant pain, only some periodic loss of sensation and/or repeated sudden collapses without warning.
Diagnosis is by an MRI and treatment by a neurosurgeon.
The cure is laminectomy, a spinal surgery that is not nearly as painful nor disabling (in my own experience) as a joint replacement. A couple of weeks rehab (more or less) and physical therapy is required following the procedure. My own results (and others I'm familiar with) have been very good. I'm a couple of years post-op ( 80 yrs old now) and have not fallen in 2 yrs! My mother also had to have this surgery, so there may be a hereditary component. She also recovered nicely and this was quite a number of years ago.
I know a woman who has Down’s syndrome that suddenly stopped walking when she was diagnosed with dementia. It’s strange. She just turned 51. She used to walk fine, even dance to music, then completely stopped walking. The hospice nurse said they have seen this before with other patients. She is now in a wheelchair.
I am so sorry. Best wishes to you and your family.
And inactivity, like sitting all day, allows the leg muscles to atrophy and weaken.
If she's fallen 5 times in one week, that is a bad sign. 50% of elderly who start to fall die within the next two years. That's a statistic I learned when I worked for a life and disability insurance firm for 40+ years. Living alone is no longer an option for her. She probably needs a nursing home, since assisted living facilities cannot keep residents who fall continually.