General Question

keithold's avatar

How long should it take an elderly gentleman to recover from a broken pelvis?

Asked by keithold (735points) December 13th, 2009

He turns 80 on Thursday. He has been diagnosed with a badly broken pelvis last night.

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6 Answers

jca's avatar

everyone is different so it would be hard to say. i don’t think you can put a cast on a pelvis, either. he may need physical therapy, so if you mean recover as to walk again, or recover as to be 100% of what he was before (which may be never). or you mean recover as to be home from the hospital? it would also depend on any other conditions he may have like diabetes which may make healing take longer. was he spry before this or was he old and frail and shuffling?

john65pennington's avatar

My elderly mother fell and broke her hip. she never recovered, simply because she refused to go to physical therapy. she is now in a wheelchair. point here is…...the older you are the longer the recovery. go to pt and tell yourself i am going to recover as soon as possible. we all are different and it may take you some time. do not give up.

butterflykisses's avatar

It depends on state of mind, state of health and the willingness to get better. I have worked with so many elderly in a nursing home that have broken their pelvis. Some recover quite well and go home, others give up, others were just too ill before they broke their pelvis to ever recover. Every one is different and there is no way to say how well one will recover. I think this applies to any age. So many factors come into play.

I wish this person a speedy recovery.

JLeslie's avatar

It takes months. Make sure you get some physical therapy to come to your house once the bone starts to heal so he does not wind up permamnently confined to a wheel chair, and be sure your nursing care is good and avoids bed sores. Broken pelvis in teh elderly is very serious.

faye's avatar

My elderly mother, 82, also broke her hip. She was home on her own in 2 weeks with home care nurses coming in to help her in and out of bathtub every week. She would go down the basement stairs on her bum to do her own laundry. Attitude, attitude.

Aster's avatar

My MIL broke her pelvis and would not go to a hospital only because she had a golden retreiver she refused to leave with anyone. So
all she did was call her sister and cry. A couple months later she
was walking fine. She was very thin; maybe that helped. The dog
weighed more than she did and would drag her down the street
we were told, chasing rabbits. But she kept walking him anyway.
Her last 2 years were a nightmare. Thank heavens she lived in
a small town and didn’t get lost going to the stores. She did,
however, start running red lights she had stopped for for many decades.

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