As I was bending over this morning feeding meat baby food to my cats (they get a bit as a treat every morning) I was reminded of a guy who used to live up the street from me in the '70s when I was a kid. He was an elderly guy, always cheerful, but he was bent over literally at a 90 degree angle. All the time. He never stood up straight; I don’t think he could. He could walk, and I never saw him in a wheelchair–he always just walked around bent over so his upper body was parallel with the ground. This wasn’t a temporary thing.
Of course back then it either didn’t occur to me to ask anybody about it or I asked and wasn’t given an answer because asking was impolite. But now, after all these years, I’m curious. I’ve never seen another person like this.
Anybody know what might have been wrong with him? I’m assuming some sort of back injury or abnormality, but it just seemed weird to me that he’d be walking instead of in a wheelchair if it was a chronic thing.
Well, I have issues with my lower spine compressing and some other problems, and I can stand longer if I bend double at the waist than if I stand upright unless I support my body weight with crutches. I would suppose he could have been having similar problems. He could have also suffered several broken vertebrae and the healing was not the best, and he felt less pain bent over?
Osteoporosis (loss of bone density associated with aging) can result in a pretty severe hunch in the upper back. This graphic gives an idea of how can progress. I’ve seen people even more severely hunched than the last drawing in that series who might fit your description.
I’ve been walking like that recently, with a slipped disc. It wasn’t massively uncomfortable to walk like that, and I’d much prefer it to being in a wheelchair if it was a permanent thing- even if it does get you odd looks; it’s so much easier to get exercise, and you can use places with stairs for a start off.
Way back when I was in my late 20s I had a severe lower back spasm. Since I didn’t have health insurance at the time I tried home remedies, which actually made it worse. I remember being bent over, similar to the OP, and being literally unable to straighten up. This lasted about a week, then gradually got better.
It’s possible this guy had a chronic severe back spasm that just never got better, because of his age and/or other problems like osteoporosis.
An elderly lady I knew walked like that. She’d had polio around age 30 and it had permanently weakened her back muscles. She managed very well, though…she and her husband were enthusiastic campers, even did some back-country hiking, with the aid of a cane.
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Interesting. Yeah, the one thing I always noticed about the guy is that he was really cheerful whenever I saw him, and seemed to be a happy guy. He didn’t look like he was in pain at all. He was just bent over.
Ankylosing spondilitis is a form of arthritis that fuses the spine and can give a hunched look. My father has it. Google images shows some people with far more hunch than my dad has.
I know a fellow like that. He’s probably in his 70’s now. Fifteen years ago he could stand up straight, now he can’t. He’s usually in a wheelchair, but I’ve seen him stand and his upper torso is essentially parallel to the ground. I don’t know what his affliction is.
ETA: My point being it can indeed be acquired, rather than innate.
I haven’t read this book in ages, but that reminds me of a vignette from Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook his Wife For a Hat. The patient was a very old man who had lost his sense of balance from an illness that damaged his inner ears, and he walked bent over like that to compensate. It was completely unconscious though, from his perspective he was walking upright.
There were little old ladies like this everywhere I went in Japan. Tiny little things, bent 90 degrees with a little rolling scooter/basket to bring home their daily shopping in. I felt so terrible for them, I just wanted to lift each one up and give them a piggyback ride home.
My great uncle was severely hunched, but not right at the waist, more mid-back like the graphic posted above for osteoporosis, which my mother confirmed when I asked her. It can make a person look bent at the waist if they’re bent enough.
That was going to be my guess. My father has advanced Ankylosing spondilitis. He looks like he is looking at the the ground most of the time. Here (http://www.painneck.com/ankylosing-spondylitis-treatment)is a picture of what it looks like. Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
On a side note, he probably seemed happy most of the time because of his pain medication. It can be very painful and heavy medication can be required to keep the pain under control.
