Bungalow legs.

Your poor Mum I hope it all sorts itself out soon. Has a diabetic nurse looked at her legs?

Do be careful if you decide to crawl/bump on the stairs. My mother (94) suddenly became immobile recently but managed to get downstairs by coming down on her bottom. Unfortunately, she grazed the fragile skin on the back of her legs, which left the carpet covered in blood, but much worse than that, the wounds have now ulcerated. ?

Stairs are a work out if you can manage them. I’m in a temporary home, up four flights of stairs. They were a struggle when I moved in eight weeks ago and I puffed a bit (esp carrying bags) and my knees hurt when I got to the top, but with regular use, I’m now much more capable.

I remember my Grandmother used to go up and down stairs on her bum rather than walk.

Believe me having worked in rehab, I do know that it’s a fact. People who live in houses are remarkably more able than those in bungalows. Unless the bungalow dwellers have worked at not allowing it to occur.

Going up and down our stairs is our main source of exercise. Most people here live in one storey houses and when they come to our house they find it difficult because they are not used to stairs. Gives us a small smug sense of well-being! During Covid and our savage lockdown we would run up and down the stairs a dozen times to keep fit.

I mean alerted. My key board is dyslexic.

Of course a bungalow makes sense if you already have any mobility problems at all, Calendargirl, but my point was that people with no existing problems can find their fitness declining when they’re no longer up and down stairs a lot on a daily basis.
It had never occurred to my parents that this would happen.

I never before heard of Bungalow Legs and now I'm altered, I'll make more effort to crawl upstairs. I can walk but crawling is safer.

Surely if you move to a bungalow, one of the main reasons is that as we age, it makes sense to be on one floor?

How many older folk living in a house, short of having a stair lift installed, have to live on the ground floor, as they can no longer manage the stairs anyway.?

We moved to a bungalow 17 years ago, love it, and as for ‘bungalow legs/knees’, we try and use stairs whenever we can, in shops we avoid lifts and escalators, and just walk and try and keep active as much as possible.

A neighbour warned us about bungalow leg syndrome when we moved here 9years ago. Hadn’t occurred to us not having stairs would be a problem. So far we can still use them although we’re both slowing down! When out we use stairs and steps whenever we can, walk as much as energy allows. One son has only one toilet - upstairs. A real incentive to climb what can seem a mountain at times, but then stairs often seemed that way to me before we moved .

It’s a strange one. Some friends who live in houses seem to climb stairs easily while they struggle walking outside. It’s possible you’d struggle with stairs anyway kirkcubbin if your hip is an issue and you can do less generally. Hope you get help with the hip and can gradually rebuild strength. Horrible when day to day things we took for granted suddenly seem impossible

I live on the first floor so have to use stairs. They are getting harder though. I prefer living on the first floor as it's warmer and more secure than the ground floor.

I’ve certainly heard of ‘bungalow knees’ before. My folks moved to a bungalow in their mid 60s, not because they particularly wanted one, but because it was all they could find in their chosen area.

After maybe 3 years though, they decided they didn’t like the area after all, and moved again, to a house - where they realised that a lack of stairs had seriously affected their fitness. (I do realise that they were lucky to have no real mobility problems.)

Their fitness did return, and my mother was still well able to manage stairs when she finally moved to a care home at 89 (dementia). I’m well aware that she was relatively extremely lucky, though.

No, I felt I might fall but I will try some exercises later.

I can still go upstairs crawling, and then go downstairs in a backward crawl for safety, but I don't go upstairs much as it's so untidy and I have most of the stuff I need downstairs.

I'd not even try steep stairs like some old terrace houses have. Kirkubbin, did you try crawling ?