Thanks Granny. He has a rare type of muscular dystrophy called Bethlem Myopathy, that was just diagnosed a couple of years ago. He has had it all his life, but didn't know it until the symptoms became severe. He is okay, but suffers a lot of pain. Two other family members were also recently diagnosed with it. My mom is 88, legally blind, and mostly deaf (but we finally got hearing aids--yay!) I spend most of my days looking after her. She is still ambulatory, and we walk in the yard most days, but she forgets anything that happened 5 minutes ago.