Can walk but not without pain

66Mustang

I have a family member who has a very poorly knee which badly affects their mobility. The doctor won’t let them have a “new knee” because they are too young. 

We are just wondering whether it would be worth them applying for PIP, with the hope of qualifying for the mobility component - even the lower rate, or would they be considered too mobile to be eligible?

They can walk longer distances with a stick. They can occasionally walk up to around 1/3 mile, but with great difficulty, and have to spend several days recovering afterwards. The stairs causes great pain. Any amount of walking causes pain - in fact the knee hurts even when sitting still and sometimes they have trouble standing. It affects their ability to do things around the house. The pain cannot be understated - sometimes they are in tears with the pain. However at the end of the day they still battle on and are able to function, albeit at a slower pace than most people.

To put it simply, due to their pride and tenacity they can indeed walk more than the specified 200 metres, but, they cannot walk even 1 metre without huge amounts of pain.

Is this pain at all relevant, or, is the decision simply based on whether or not you can walk, regardless of how difficult this is?

Many thanks.

janer1967

Hi @66Mustang

You need to probably take into account if they can do it reliably , safely and repeatedly 

Eg if they walk ars they safe and also what affect it has does it mean they then cant walk again for rest of the day or for few hours 

Pain is sort of taken into account but they would presume pain killers would help 

Being able to do stairs isnt included in PIP descriptors daft as it may sound 

Has the gp suggested any other treatment like injections   what is the cause of the pain has it been diagnosed 

Also alternative treatment like massage , physio   acupuncture and do on may be an option 

calcotti

66Mustang said:  They can occasionally walk up to around 1/3 mile, but with great difficulty, and have to spend several days recovering afterwards. 

PIP is based on the majority of days so if most days they cannot leave the house then that is what counts.

66Mustang

Thank you everyone for the tips.

@janer1967 They have been having steroid injections in the knee for some time now. Also very powerful painkillers (tramadol) prescribed but the help this gives is limited

I don’t know if they have had a proper diagnosis or not - I will have to ask them

I will suggest to them the other things you mentioned as they are open to anything at this point.

Thanks again

66Mustang

Thank you, Mike

Appreciate all the replies, they are going to put in a claim and see what happens.