Dad (94) is bedridden with heart failure. He wants to walk again with a walker, but both hip joints are degenerated. What can I do?

My husband too after being bedridden for some time, thought that if he could just try using his hemi-walker again that he could start walking again. He would beg me to get it down from the attic for him, but I knew that it wouldn't help him and that his muscles at that point were just too atrophied, so I never did. In my husbands case, he had had a massive stroke many years earlier, which left him very weak on his right side, with no use of his right arm, and prior to him becoming bedridden, he was already moving so slowly and falling a lot, that I knew that no matter what, he would never be mobile again. That is hard for sure for a person to have to come to terms with. Now we did however put him in his transport chair to take him outside, or just around the house on occasion, just to give him a change of scenery. I don't think just putting your dad in his wheelchair will do any harm to him. Try it and see how he tolerates it. It would probably do him a lot of good just to have a change of scenery as well.

I'm hoping that your dad is under hospice care now that he's completely bedridden. They will supply him with any needed medications, equipment,(including hospital bed) and supplies, all covered 100% under your dad's Medicare. I wish you the very best.

Basically you sympathize with him. If you are POA for Health you attend MD appointments and ask doctors to draw him pictures of his points as they are, likely at this point bone on bone, and explain that nothing can be done with this. You don't say, but Dad may be losing some faculties of understanding. So basically you humor, you redirect, you sympathize, you discuss with MD what medications might help including the heavy duty steroids. At this point there is nothing to lose. You may also consider purchase of one of these med; there is much to be said for the placebo affect. I sure wish you good luck.

I would involve his doctor and a physical therapist. They can evaluate him and see what is feasible. He will probably take what they say better than you trying to convince him.