Sleep apnea

Hi Karen,
It's not so much about what disabilities you have, as to how they affect you. If for example, your arthritis makes your grip poor, you may qualify for help with preparing food, likewise if you fall over etc then you might need help getting into the bath, and you may qualify for points under walking ability/mobility. The only way is to look at the descriptors carefully, and see if the limitations you have as a result of any of your conditions or all of them taken together make you unable to perform descriptor activities at all, or not safely, outside a reasonable time, not to an acceptable standard (which can include higher levels of pain,) or repeatedly across the whole day.
My experience suggests that if you have OCD you may not be able to perform tasks in a reasonable time, (you take too long - longer than twice a non disabled person would take.) Repetition can also be a problem for people with OCD. Depression/Anxiety often indicate a need for prompting. Remember also the cumulative effect of doing activities. Maybe you are ok in the morning but too tired in the evening. Maybe you can do one PIP activity, but at the expense of another. Repetition requires you do each activity across the whole day as many times as is reasonable. So preparing food could be 2,3 or perhaps 4 times. Toilet needs could be 5 or 6, more with incontinence. Communication could be 24/7. If you can show that you can't repeat a task, and it is not just for a trivial amount of time, then you can't 'repeat'.
Consider whether an aid/appliance could improve your ability to do the tasks, and make you able to fulfil the 4 criteria listed above. Maybe you need physical assistance from someone.
You need to consider what the patterns of needs is for the majority of time.
These are areas you may well want to have a good look at. - Everything is set out in the members guides on this website.
I did an appeal a while back for a chap who had walking problems, but also had sleep apnoea. He had a CPAP machine, but unfortunately this often came off in the middle of the night. The chap would then thrash about. His wife needed to replace the mask - the straps were often tangled and needed unravelling. Due to poor grip etc as well the wife had to clean out the machine and make it ready for use. I successfully argued that this amounted to a 'need for supervision etc to manage therapy' - depending on how long this all takes descriptor 3c, d, e or f could apply. This deals with a need for help - it doesn't matter if you don't actually receive the help. (The argument being is that without the help you may not be safe, within a reasonable time etc.)
I hope this helps.

LL26