Can walk but not without pain
66Mustang
Community member Posts: 13,368 Disability Gamechanger
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.
Comments
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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 -
66Mustang said: They can occasionally walk up to around 1/3 mile, but with great difficulty, and have to spend several days recovering afterwards.Information I post is for England unless otherwise stated. Rules may be different in other parts of UK.
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It's always worth claiming if they think it's the right thing to do, difficult to comment on if we think they would be successful.
Link to the descriptors guide worth a read.
https://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/personal-independence-payment-pip/pip-points-system
2024 The year of the general election...the time for change is coming 💡 -
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 -
Thank you, Mike
Appreciate all the replies, they are going to put in a claim and see what happens.
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