My 87 year old mother with some dementia. Anyone experience this?

I've been helping my husband who has dementia for 2 years now. When you leave a "Loved One" in the hospital for anything and their elderly they feel abandonment. Like, you left them, you've given up on them. They get depressed, you should call them a lot and have others call them. But even with that you need to be there for them top see as much as you can. 2 fold reasoning, to make sure their ok and to make sure the Hospital is doing their JOB!!! Also my husband has another whole personality, we call him GUS lol but he's a very negative person, he don't like NOBODY! and especially Me!! He hates me, wants to kill me Gus likes to fight, you have to be able to separate the two and deal with it the best way you can. There will be a lot of tears and laughter. That's right laughter, learn to laugh at the negatives times cause they will hurt your feelings, & heart. People will tell you, don't pay attention to them when that happens but you'll know when it's the dementia and when it isn't. I hope and pray you get ALL the HELP you need. Do your research, check your insurance see what they offer for assistance. Because that's going to be your biggest need, "Assistance". Find out which dementia your LO has, then you'll better know what needs to be done. The fall could've cause a mini stroke or Vice-Versa, get every test you can get done, cause their all serious but you want to know if it's Vascular Dementia (Heart). Try to get as much rest as you can, I fought for a year trying to get rest. They changed his meds, He takes 2 Quetiapine FUMARATE 25mg, 2 Melatonin 10 mg ea, and .5 ml of Haloperidol at night and he sleeps all night, OMG I was Happy! Every now and then he fights taking it...that's gus trying to make me miserable, but that's does work for me now. His Haloperidol is given with the syringe (without needles) in his mouth which calms him down in about an hour to the point where he agrees to take the rest of his meds. it's ok if they sleep during the day. you still wake them to eat, when you wake them keep them woke with activities for cognitive impairment, talk to them about things and people they know about, if they like music, play their favorite music. Keeping your mental health in tack is IMPORTANT too, so you stay active get out as much as possible. DO THINGS TO HELP YOU & make you feel good, no anti-depression meds if you don't have to. Be Strong & Keep God First #IMHEREFORYOU

I have found the hospitals are treating those w/o Covid like garbage; 'treating' them minimally and releasing them almost immediately, especially elders. My 95 y/o mother was rushed to the hospital by ambulance last month with chest pains and released 3 hours later after they gave her a BLOOD TEST to see what her kidney function looked like (!) and an IV bag of fluids. No CT scan, no further heart evaluation aside from an EKG in the ambulance, and that was IT. Thankfully, I got her onto hospice care later in the month (she lives in Memory Care AL) and their care has been MUCH better than the hospital's.

Anyway, that said, I've seen behavior like your mom's a few times with my own parents after a hospitalization (admittance for a few days); it's known as hospital delirium which was NOT caused by 'medicines' given to my mother, since there was only an antibiotic administered to her for pneumonia. At that time, she had mid-moderate dementia at play which wasn't too bad; she was perfectly functional, talking normally, living in regular AL, cooking/cleaning her apt like she always did, etc. During the hospitalization for pneumonia, she turned into another person entirely, like Linda Blair in the Exorcist almost. She was seeing mice crawling on the floor (which weren't there), she was trying to pack her belongings into the sleeve the utensils come in on the food tray, yammering gibberish and making NO sense at all! I was alarmed, to say the least. The RN told me all about hospital delirium at that time, and that's when I learned about it. She went off to rehab with that delirium intact and it stayed with her for the duration of her 3 week stay!

When she came out of rehab, we had to transfer her into Memory Care and after about 2 weeks, she was back to pretty much her old self again. Her dementia had taken a turn for the worse, though, and she had become wheelchair bound during the hospital/rehab stint (due to advanced neuropathy and 40 falls), but every time an elder goes to the hospital, imo, they DO take a decline they don't seem to fully recover from, esp at an advanced age (she was 92 at the time).

If your mom had a CT scan and it was determined she didn't have a stroke or other head damage from the fall, I'd just give her time to recover from the trauma of the hospitalization AND from rehab (providing her UA is negative). Don't expect any miraculous recovery until she's released. And, it's a tricky thing about taking her off the pain killers cold turkey; why would they do that? Is she now expected to have NO pain whatsoever while in REHAB, for petesake? She'll be getting PT & OT which is no joyride with a broken/healing femur, so I'd speak to the attending physician at the SNF to get his/her feedback on that matter. I have a big mouth and I suggest you develop one yourself if you don't already have one :) It's needed for our loved ones these days, unfortunately. Otherwise, they seem to get the bum's rush imo.

Wishing you the best of luck!!

Hospital delirium is very, very real! I had to deal with it in November when my Dad, also in AL, had a seizure and was in the hospital and rehab for several weeks. It was awful. Not only was he totally out of it, he became belligerent with me and staff and actually threw a plant I bought him for Thanksgiving and broke a wall-mounted TV! I thought they were going to kick him out. The good news is, once he got back to AL he very quickly went back to baseline. (Which means a lot of memory problems, but none of that aggression) He barely remembers any of his time in the hospital, the only thing he says was that he thought he was on a ship that kept bobbing back and forth in the waves and he didn't know why. I actually spoke to his neurologist about this (the AL wanted me to, because they got a report of his behavior in rehab) and she said it is really, really common, especially in older people with even mild dementia.

Count your lucky stars to have for mother so long and only has "some" dementia. If she had to have surgery, the anesthesia may have affected her mind. At her age, I'm not sure how much she can recover. I'm only 65 and broke my hip last summer. For a couple months after the surgery, I felt like an idiot. I couldn't think of so many words I wanted to say. Good luck and health to your mother.

My dad had no dementia, but did experience some hospital delirium several times, the combination of mixing up nights and days, not moving around, hospital isolation, all very hard on him. Your mom could have a head injury from the fall, an undetected stroke, a UTI, or some other cause for the change. Talk with her doctor about your concerns, and be aware how hard the hospital environment often is on the elderly. Wishing peace for both you and mom

I agree with BarbBrooklyn that her fall may have been the result of stroke and this can at least be confirmed with imaging and tests. Also maybe test for a UTI. Use tests to work towards a diagnosis. She can be switched from her current medications to see if that's the problem. But whether it was anesthesia related, I don't think there's a way to test for that as the source of the problem, only the process of elimination of other causes. I wish you much success in helping your mom get the answers and care she now needs.

Welcome, Susan! And (((((hugs))))))).

Hospitalization is very hard on folks with dementia; they (and others) can suffer from "hospital delerium".

Has you mother had a CAT or MRI to rule out a stroke as the cause of the fall?

Has her femur been repaired? Anesthesia is REALLY hard on the elderly brain.

Is she on any new meds thst might be causing side effects?

That's my unscientific take on some of the things that could be going on.

What do her doctors say about her symptoms?