Broken hip

[mikey9]

Had mum up with us (400 miles away) for Christmas, struggling with mobility as she needs a replacement knee (which she was 1 day away from last April but, things prevented it happening). Unfortunately she also now has really sore hip, I persuaded her to get a priv consultation on the knee (as she can't get to see her GP...).
Just rang to say he told her the hip is "shattered" (his words) and he will write to her GP to ask for an urgent referral....
We are thinking, if she falls and can't get up, then into hospital (she has a warden buzzer) and hip replacement, but because she "just" copes (really on the edge though, she has had falls) she goes home...and puts up with the huge pain.
Should I encourage her to simply go camp in A+E?

Broken hips are serious in the elderly so it would be an A&E visit if that was my mum.

My DGM died within a year of her broken hip. The mortality rates are quite high.

https://www.verywellhealth.com/how-dangerous-is-a-broken-hip-when-youre-older-2223520

I think you need to get this clarified and checked out. Isn’t a broken hip which elderly people get in a fall something different from the osteoarthritis in hip which people have a hip replacement for?
If her hip is shattered I would have thought he would have sent her to hospital for an urgent operation. If she needs a hip replacement then perhaps if you go to see the GP after the letter from the consultant has arrived you can sort out a plan for treatment?

Yes, I want to know more about the meaning of "shattered" (i.e. in several pieces, with 1 fracture, bits floating or crumbling (Osteo?) The letter will be cc'd to mum so I will get her to read it out. The GP seems impossible to access so I suspect will have to push for her.

If it was actually broken he would have called her an ambulance not just told her he would write to her GP. I think it was just his expression for really bad osteoarthritis (AKA knackered). Unfortunately going to A & E will not get her an operation quicker. She would only get an op quicker if she had a fall and fractured neck of femur but that would be an emergency as she would be unable to bear weight on it or mobilise at all.

Thanks, I think the use of that word is perhaps the problem here, I couldn't understand how she was calling from home, and she does (just) bear weight on it with some cracking sounds (like I have in an arthritic knee, just louder).

The crackling, I’ve read, is connective tissue and not bone. Makes it slightly easier to cope with. Part of pain is fear (after all, the point if pain is to alert you to the possibility of further damage) so if you can reduce the fear, the pain is easier to cope with.