Freedom- my mom has the same problem in one of her knees, and she said it's very painful. I will be sure to give Dusty a cheek scratching for you.

Catty1 - I thought about a wheeled cart, however there are a few problems with that..
1) we have an upstairs which Dusty loves to spend alot of time up there.
2) Dusty won't walk at all with anything around her body, we can't even use a harness on her because she'll just lay and not move at all.
3) a few of the other cats stalk and pounce her, and a cart would make it much harder for her to hide from them. Dusty has limited eyesight in dim lighting, no pariphial vision, and her hearing is going. I have often thought that the other cats know she's getting older and more feeble and that's why they hound her so.

It was a great idea about the cart though.