My mom 86 years old fell three times yesterday and is now in hospital. No sign of stroke or cardiac (she has a pacemaker) just high blood sugar. Any advice?

Sometimes a person can have too many medications in their system and it backfires on them. Blood pressure medications are tricky. As a body gets older, it becomes harder to regulate to keep things in homeostasis.

It's not much you can do for mom at this point. She is in the hospital. They will get the medication issue straightened out. Hopefully, she will follow up on her regular physician.

You are asking us about a medical diagnosis, let them figure it out. She is hospitalized and more tests can be done. They cannot safely discharge yet.

I am so with Alva on this. I know for a fact that too much B/P med can cause this problem. My Mom was in the hospital in pain. They doubled her B/P meds. When she was released, no more pain, they still had her at 160mg her norm is 80. I questioned it but was told she was in pain, I said, not now. My Mom could not get off her couch. In home nurse called Moms PCP and had him order back to 80mg. Mom perked right up. Same happened with DH. Given B/P meds in the hospital for pain. No pain when released but insisted he needed the B/P meds. Went to reg PCP and she asked him how he was able to walk his pressure was so low.

My nephew was told to test his B/P at rest. As soon as he gets up in the morning. This is the most accurate reading.

As any patient is as individual as his or her own thumbprint I will leave the conjecture to her docs, but this could be anything from the blood sugar to weakness to the most common culprit, which is balance. We tend to lose our balance with age, and go down very easily due to this.

You mention buckling of the legs. That would happen just with the fall no matter the cause of the fall.

I think that a PT consult may give a lot of clues as well, and some rehab work may be needed as well as getting that sugar under control.

One last thing to consider. This old retired RN used to see a huge number of falls due to blood pressure medications. Problem seemed to be that the patient had high BP in the office, was given medications, and then went home where the BP was normal without the white coat phobia. I suffer from this myself. Taking the medication without blood pressure measurements can result in sudden weakness and falls, esp. when getting up out of bed from prone to standing position at night. Worth checking with home blood pressure machines, easy, cheap, automatic, and I trust Omron more than others. Should take to next MD appointment to measure its reading against the office machine; this ensures accuracy.

Sure wish you luck.

You say she has some cognitive decline... does she also have some short-term memory impairment? I'm asking because if she is living on her own and is in charge of administering her meds herself, she could be under- or over-dosing herself (no matter what she tells you she may believe it's accurate and it may not be).

Has she been checked for vertigo? Dehydration? A UTI? Or other infection? There are many issues that can cause the elderly to have balance or dizziness problems. These should all be checked as well, but mostly whether she is actually taking her meds as prescribed.

My MIL was not taking her thyroid medicine as prescribed even though I was talking her through the steps over the phone. She'd confirm she took them. Then when i went to her house I saw the pills scattered on her table with the glass of water sitting right there. I counted the pills. Nope, she hadn't taken them and swore to me that she did. She wasn't even eating, but swore she had. She became faint while on an outing with us. She hadn't eaten. That's when we knew she had to have more daily hands-on help.

Has your mom lost weight and is she more or less physically inactive? With my mom it was just that she had been getting weaker so gradually that we didn't notice until she reached the tipping point that she began to fall.

I’m so sorry that your mom is struggling with this situation.

My mom fell plenty of times but her issues stemmed from her Parkinson’s disease.

My mom did benefit from home health physical and occupational therapy.

She went into the hospital after a bad fall. Her doctor felt that she would benefit from a stay at a rehabilitation facility. It is covered by insurance and it did help her.

Have you spoken with her doctor about your mom doing physical and occupational therapy? This will help her with improving her strength and balance.

Falls are scary for the elderly and their families. As I am sure that you you know, they can be very dangerous too.

Best wishes to you and your mother.