Review form physical vs neurological vs mental health.

Hi sooty

The Going Out activity looks at three things.

Planning a route - this is primarily a cognitive or sensory (e.g. blindness) activity. You are being asked about the problems you would have with working out how to get from one place to another, you do not need to be able to follow the route that you are planning.

Undertaking a Journey - this is to do with mental health issues such as agoraphobia and social anxiety and is concerned with you leaving the house to go somewhere, they will be interested in the things that stop you doing this. You need to show that you would suffer "overwhelming psychological distress" to meet the criteria.

Following a route - This activity about the problems you would have navigating a route. So are there any problems; cognitive, sensory or mental health issues that would prevent you from doing this? This is different from undertaking a journey, in fact, if you cannot undertake a journey then you will not score points for following one and vice versa.

The 'walking test' is not all about maximum distance. What I call the 'Duracell test' - remember the tv adverts where the Duracell toy goes on forever, and the other toys don't.

Think about these 4 criteria-

- [x] safety
- [x] reasonable time
- [x] repetition
- [x] acceptable standard

Safety - do you fall, (or stagger as this is realistically a fall that you can stop.)? Where/why do you fall - can you get up afterwards- how long after - have you injured yourself - how severe - hospital?

Reasonable time - no longer than twice the time of a non disabled person - do you need pauses/sit down or rest against a wall - why? If the pause is quite long you won't be within the reasonable time. If very long this will indicate a shorter walking ability comprising 2 or more walks interspersed with breaks.

Repetition - if you walked earlier in the day can you walk again - if you are exhausted and can't walk (or indeed do other PIP activities such as cooking/dressing etc) then it is likely you can't repeat. You need to be able to repeat as many times as reasonably required across the whole day. Remember that even if you go out in the car, there will be a walk to the car from the front door and to the shop etc even if you park immediately outside. So, you do the school run, come home, need to go to the bank, stop off at the shop en route home. Collect child from school. Later remember you need to post a letter. Evening go out to visit friends. All these journeys/walks would not be unreasonable - could you perform these solely as walking. (Unless you are exceedingly close to all of these then it is likely you can 'repeat'.) Or if these are car/bus journeys and the walking is only from the car parked nearby - could you do all of these? What would be the distance where you would be able to walk having parked the car to complete these? - this might indicate you could repeat 50m but not 100m etc.

If you fail to be able to achieve all the repetitions as reasonably required, as long as it is not something somewhat trivial, you cannot 'repeat'.

Acceptable standard - pain is included here. How do you walk? If you fall or stagger as well as being 'unsafe' it could indicate not acceptable standard. Do you bump into things? What about 'severe discomfort' - includes pain, but also breathlessness, nausea, dizziness. Possibly also fatigue.

Can you meet all 4 of these criteria - if you fail even one then you may be able to achieve points.

You need to consider the majority of time - so think about better days/bad days - what sort of proportions are these? Note majority of time - don't get confused with majority of days.

Your PIP walking ability (not the Duracell one!) is how far you can walk safely, acceptably, repeatedly in a timely manner for the majority of the time.
Is there a place you regularly go to - either solely by foot or with a vehicle as well? How far is it? Maybe get a friend to pace it out? If you get out of breath/pain etc where along the walk does it start? This might help you narrow down the distance.

Any walking done with severe discomfort needs to be discounted, so if the pain etc is to that level at the very start of any walk it won't count. If you start with severe discomfort - then PIP/'legal' walking ability is 0m, even though your Duracell walk is several hundred metres!

Please consider your PIP walking ability carefully!

Hope this helps.

Gary