How do you start the journey from bed to toilet?

[Mark Rippetoe]

If I could be indulged with an interesting case

I remember I was a junior doctor (resident) on an elderly rehab ward and picked up the notes (paper in those days) of a new patient. They were several inches thick. He had been admitted and diagnosed with a very nasty peritoneal tumour. They had tried to put him off surgery, but gone ahead and he spent many weeks after circling the drain. There then followed many weeks of rehab with what sounded like astonishing if slow progress until he was sent to me. I went to his bed and in amongst the other very frail patients sat a man in his 90s dressed like a colourblind pimp with dozens of very funky colognes on his dresser. I found out he was a ww2 paratrooper and had survived 2 gunshots during the war and was looking forward to getting back home.

The only reason I remember this story is how it is the complete opposite to the outcome of nearly every other case of severe illness I saw in the elderly patients I look after.

Clothes Make the Man, apparently.

[IlPrincipeBrutto]

Hello,

in case anyone is interested, I thought I would post an update.
The person concerned can now get out of bed (it's actually been a couple of weeks), and walk around the house unassisted (although some times they still use a Zimmer-frame, especially when tired). They are working on recovering the ability to get up steps, and they are also doing the 'sitting on a pile' exercise, to be able to raise from a chair without supporting themselves with their arms.
They have been followed by a physio; I don't know what he had them doing, but he never vetoed any of the exercises proposed in this thread.
The important thing is that there has been progress; the person remains very motivated, and I am pretty confident there is more to come.

Thanks once more for all the precious advice.

IPB