Hi , Mum was diagnosed with PSP in December 2020 , she is still able to walk but has many many falls.
She is currently in India and had a fall and has a hair line fracture on her shoulder (proximo humerus). Docs are recommending surgery as she is not able to do anything with one hand and as she has osteoperosis the healing time is extra long
Has any one or any loved ones had surgery and do you know if surgery made other conditions worse? since her fracture she seems to be losing her balance even more so.
many thanks
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Juliana29
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This is a tough one. I’ve had two shoulder surgeries and it’s a long recovery even for a healthy person. An immobile shoulder will make caring for her needs like balance but also ADLs like eating and dressing, which are so problematic for us, much harder. I really wouldn’t want to face it on my own.
PSP questions I have so we could maybe offer suggestions.. what stage is she at? Can she see how much damage she could do by acting as if it’s not a problem and being “self reliant” as I’m tempted to do when challenged? Does she have regular help?
If you decide on surgery, try to avoid general anesthesia. Spinal blocks and twilight sleep are ok. PSP people can come out of general anesthesia with much worse cognitive abilities.
General anesthesia is really problematic, although I have read that perhaps the damage arises from the cooling of the body that is done during surgery to slow bleeding rather than from the drugs. I don’t know which is the threat. Cognitive setbacks and even permanent loss of function are not uncommon even in otherwise healthy older patients.
In our case, we went through a hip fracture with a long recovery that could not restore the previous situation to 100%, but it was totally necessary.
Losing the mobility of an arm from the first stages of the disease seems to me a significant loss and if the risk of the operation is not great, I think it is worth trying.
Perhaps other members of the chat can give you more precise advice.
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