Question:
Is it possible for a bed-ridden bariatric patient's excess wt around trunk 2 be heavy enough to fracture bones?
I work on a wing of a care facility that currently has a 700+lb female patient. At the beginning of the month, this patient had to have her leg removed, due to her stomach overlapping, and cutting off circulation to one of her legs (her stomach doesn't lay evenly). The lack of circulation was causing the leg to die. Please note, she isn't a diabetic. It's also important to note that the patient has been bed-ridden for about 7 years. Since she has been bed-ridden this long, I'm aware that her bones haven't been ossifying (layering of calcium) to keep them strong. I'm aware that a bed-ridden person's bones will eventually become more flexible, than hard and breakable, but unsure the time period in which this occurs. This patient weighed over 800 lbs before losing her leg, below the knee cap. Upon returning from the surgery, she now registers at about 774 lbs. Now, a few weeks later, she has a mysterious fracture of the right femur bone (lost left leg). Of course, there are suspended caregivers during the state investigation occurring right now(I'm not one of them). The facility is trying to claim her weight caused the fracture and not roughness of the patient. Is it even possible that her weight around her mid area (trunk) could actually break a femur bone of a bed-ridden person?
Answers:
The answer to this question is yes being weightless for any extended length of time will weaken the bones. There is a law called Wolf's Law that states bone strengthens or gets weakened according to the stress that is placed on it. So if she has been in bed for a long time the bone gets steadily weaker thus allowing the fracture. Also moving the limb of a person who weighs this much is going to be difficult and with the weakened state of the bones it could be very easy to create a fracture. Again it could also happen spontaneously just from the weight of the limb.
physical therapist