All those who want to lock the elderly down. This is one example why we shouldn't

[HoppingOnSteppingStones]

I hear time and time again. If the elderly or vulnerable were made to stay in then we could live pretty normally. Blah blah

Well one example how this has affected my grandmother.
She had quite low mobility. However would go for a walk to the store maybe twice a week.
She lives in a sheltered accommodation so each evening would walk to the community hall for various things with the other residents, bingo, cards, darts, singing

Lockdown 1. Community room Locked. Chairs in reception removed.
Everything cancelled.

These never re opened. Could have 5 in the room for a chat when restrictions eased but had to be booked.

By Oct they locked it up again and has remained since.

My grandmothers apartment is tiny. Lounge maybe 12 ft x 8 ft.
Kitchen 8 ft x 2.5 ft floor space
Bedroom. Double bed 1 bedside and a wardrobe.

No where to excercise, only excercise she could do anyway was a short walk. Couldn't go to the shop due to shielding.

She now can barely walk at all. The gp and carers have all said this is down to no mobility /lockdown, being stuck in.

Even in the summer when things eased. She struggled to walk to the shared garden but often there was no seat so didn't venture out.

I took her groceries today and chatted through the window, another realitive normally does this but is poorly (non covid)
I've never seen someone who admitted didn't have the best mobility. To be almost crying walking a few foot.

Thesres probably thousands apon thousands more like this.
How is this fair.
In all honesty the last Yr has prob shaved 5 years off her!

I’m so sorry for your Gran’s deterioration. My DP’s Great Gran is exactly the same. Age 94 and was very active until last March. Staying in all the time has really slowed her down.

My very elderly MIL had deteriorated over the last 10 months and is now house bound, but she has a very large garden and would walk down her road. Her deterioration is natural due to her age.

Absolutely tragic. Surely those in charge could have come up with some precautions that would have allowed at least some of these activities to go ahead. It's heartbreaking.

Is there any way she could use one of those pedal things when sitting which would aid circulation and at least stop any further muscle mass destruction?

Same with my dad. He’s 71. He has a stroke 15 years ago and has been wheelchair bound since but once/twice a week he would go to the supermarket with my sister.
He would stand to get in the car and take a few steps etc.

He can’t stand anymore. His weak side has completely gone and he now has to have a hoist to move him around (he used to be Able to walk with a stick from livingroom xhair to bed- bungalow). He has to have physiotherapy now and wear pads because he can’t stand to get onto the toilet.

Absolutely terrible. Not only because of the points you have mentioned, but because it's not just elderly or vulnerable people dying! I know two generally fit and well people in their 50s who have died of covid over the last couple of weeks :( we can't just lock certain people away, we all need to do our part in this together.

My mum is 90 and commented in the first lockdown that her walking was declining rapidly while she was shielding so we agreed that she would go out for a short walk every couple of days, usually just up and down her street. Even so her abilities have reduced over the last year more than we would have expected
Sorry to hear about your grandmother

It awful.

I was thinking this about my mum today who is in exactly the same situation as your DGM. I've seen her for the first time in months today as I took her for her covid vaccination (hurrah). Not only has her walking deteriorated but she's having difficulty speaking, she's very croaky and quiet. I sort of knew this because I talk to her every day on the phone but it was really noticeable in person. I reckon she's just not using her voice enough. She's definitely lost muscle tone and confidence in going out by herself. I'm looking forward to the day I can take her out for lunch again

Yes it's awful, and on top of that it wouldn't even bloody work!

Lockdown/restrictions since March have done this anyway. My parents have aged more in the last 9 months than the previous 9 years. They can barely walk to the end of the street now, have lost all social confidence, are mentally noticeably less astute. It's awful to see, watching their lives diminish so quickly. They were healthy, active and enjoying life this time last year.

Well that sounds like an argument against any lockdown at all, is that what you're suggesting? The elderly haven't been subjected to any stricker lockdown than the rest of us (unless shielding).

Agree with this. The deterioration in my mum's cognitive abilities has been so awful to see. It's like she's aged 10 years since March.

@Kendodd

Well that sounds like an argument against any lockdown at all, is that what you're suggesting? The elderly haven't been subjected to any stricker lockdown than the rest of us (unless shielding).

In a way, they have, along with people with disabilities. For example, our town centre has removed all seating, so an elderly person has no chance of being able to have a rest. I think it's absolutely criminal that we've so little disregard for people who have less fitness or mobility.

It's also upsetting to hear that the way the sheltered accommodation have tasted their residents has exacerbated the problem. They at least should have been aware of the damage that this would cause.

My elderly mother's ability to walk has deteriorated badly too.

Whilst she hasn't been subjected to a stricter lockdown than anyone else in legal terms, in practical terms she has. When things were slightly more relaxed at one stage, she could have met up with us in a public place but not in her home or someone else's home. But she wasn't able to get to a public place whereas she could obviously have easily accepted visitors in her home.

It's awful and I just cannot stand those that want to sacrifice other people's relatives to save their own sorry arses
Where has humanity gone!
What are we doing to each other
What is behind this nasty agenda of division and selfishness

I'm a mere youngster at 48. Up until November I was working full time from home. By the end of my home working period it started to hurt to walk. That was simply from sitting on my arse for 45 hours per week. Before the nights started getting dark I was walking for a good 30 minutes after a shift but I stopped when it got dark early. The days I wasn't working I was in online lectures so couldn't do much more.
If that can happen to a fairly fit 48 year old then I can see how much more it would affect someone a good few years older.
When I say my legs hurt it was the muscles. Waking up and walking down the stairs felt like I'd run a marathon the day before. Stiff as a board.

My elderly relative lives a couple of hundred metres from the town centre. He could walk into town, sit for a bit until he's able to go into a shop, sit a bit more, then walk home. Except he can't, because benches have been removed. It's too much to do it all without being able to rest.

My mother died a few years ago. It was bad enough seeing her decline in the care home but I'd have hated her to live through this.

to everyone who has had to see loved ones decline in this way - it's so sad. A friend of mine's grandfather went into a care home in February, fairly lucid (but with significant physical needs following a stroke) and by the time they could see him again he recognised no one, including his wife of 60+ years. Obviously people do decline rapidly sometimes anyway and there's no knowing what would have happened in 'normal' times, but it really feels like that period of such extreme isolation with no visitors robbed him of cognitive ability he'll never get back. On the other hand, it was done to stop him dying, as so many in care homes sadly did. It's so hard to know what's right in this situation.

@ilovesooty

My mother died a few years ago. It was bad enough seeing her decline in the care home but I'd have hated her to live through this.

My dad and I were saying the other day that, awful as it is, we're both so grateful that my last grandparent, his mother, died in 2012 - it was so terrible watching dementia steal the person she once was but it would have been so much worse in the current circumstances.

Sorry to hear that OP.

But I don't understand how it would have been different if others hadn't been locked down? Or are you saying that there should be no lockdown at all? In any case I agree with PP about how little consideration there has been for disabled people amidst all this.

My MIL is in a care home as she has dementia. She was still quite lucid the last time we saw her. Her daughter visited her, in a special outside room, for the first time in months . She is totally confused now and just wanted to go back to her room . It’s heartbreaking that her last few months of understanding have been lost.

This is so sad, and I know she is not alone. Many elderly people have have deteriorated both physically and mentally in the last year. I was speaking to someone who works in a care home the other day. She reports many residents have just given up, many not seeing relatives properly since March. Some with dementia don't even remember who their families are anymore, or are very distressed and feel abandoned as they cannot understand why family haven't been to see them. The pandemic had affected us all, but I feel our elderly and our young have been affected the most.

But elderly folk in these circumstances are suffering anyway.

I'm not saying lock away the elderly and vulnerable btw and I don't think that.

But your argument doesn't quite weigh up. I think a lot of people probably have a story about how lockdown has made their health deteriorate, all the way from children to elderly.

In the care home I worked in, even returning from a short hospital admission would reduce a person from mobile to bed bound and would take a lot of work to get them up and out again.

People with little muscle strength, if they don't use it they lose it, and I worry that these lockdowns have taken any future away from a large cohort of usually mobile people. It's dreadful.

Don't know what the answer is though, damned if you do damned if you don't in this new normal. :(