I hope this is the correct place to post this question. My alert, vibrant 83 year old grandma broke her femur early Saturday morning. She had surgery Sunday morning and seemed to be doing fine, all things considered. Today, Monday, the minute I walked into the room, I knew my grandma was different. She had a "wild" look to her eye. She recognized everyone but seemed to be confused about where she was. She thought she was back in her apartment smoking cigarettes (her 60 year + habit). She was trying to get out of bed to grab cigarettes she thought she saw on the wall. I could go on and on but you get the picture....she looked like she was in the stages of early dementia.
My grandma's leg is progressing normally. She's been on morphine but I think they switched her to vicadan (sorry, don't know how to spell). She also is on some anxiety medication as she was before the fall. In addition, she was given a nicotine patch today to help with the withdrawal. Her sodium is low for some reason and she might have to have a blood transfusion tomorrow. In addition, her oxygen levels weren't where they should be. With all this and my grandma's overnight transformation from alert to halucinatory, is this permanent? This happened literally overnight. It's so difficult to get information from the doctors and nurses. They can't say anything for sure. My grandma lived on her own before this. If she continues as she is, I can see her bedridden in a full-blown nursing home situation.
Any information about similar experiences you have dealt with would be very helpful. This is such a stressful situation right now not to mention dealing with insurance (or lack thereof) for rehab and nursing home facilities in the future.
It doesn't have to be permanent. Maybe it's only a reaction to the very strong pain meds. Your Grandma may be just fine after a couple of weeks of recovery. Many elderly people show such confusion after surgery.
My Mom (97) broke her femur in September. She had an operation to repair it and was healing well, but when I saw her in mid October (at a rehab center) she was in horrible shape. She could not find her nose to wipe it when it was runny. She couldn't find her glasses as they slipped down her nose. I thought her whole nervous system was out of whack.
Mom had already had dementia for a couple of years, and we thought this was now the final stage, hurried on by the fall, operation, and meds.
A week or so later they took her off the strong pain killers and gave her only Tylenol. The good news is that her hand/eye coordination improved totally, she can now pick up her fork and eat normally - whereas in October she had to be fed. She also had some problem with her swallowing reflex and had to be fed only liquids. That has improved to the extent that she now eats all kinds of normal food.
Mom had to stay at the nursing home. She was never able to learn to walk again, even with a walker ..it was just too hard, too much effort, and her Dementia caused her not to see the connection between going through painful therapy and getting physically stronger and going home.
She is however quite happy at the NH. and she is almost 15 years older than your grandma.
Since your grandma had no signs of Dementia before the accident, I think she has a good chance of full recovery. Therapy will be hard work, but if she has the motivation to do it, she will succeed. And try to get them to take her off that Vicodon (I don't know the spelling either) so she gets her lucidity back! My son in law was in his 20s when he had to be on morphine after a burst appendix - he saw things crawling up the walls ... that was the morphine.
Jenny,
My FIL was 87 when he had surgery for an abdominal aortic aneurysm. Like your grandma he lived on his own before surgery. After surgery, he was so doped up that he couldn't hardly keep his eyes open, definitely couldn't walk, he was hallucinating, and they were talking like they thought he would need to go to full nursing care. I explained to everyone who would listen that he had been ON HIS OWN prior to this, this was NOT HIM, and they had to get him off of the meds that were doing this to him. I felt like the nurses were liberally using the "as needed" medication orders for meds that would keep him from bugging them too much. (I think they wanted him to be doped up so he would be fine with laying in his own waste...) The doctors listened to me and discontinued the various med orders (like Ativan, etc.) and he started to come out of it within 48 hours and he did get back to the same level as before surgery. During this time, I stayed at his bedside round the clock to do the best I could to take care of his needs, keep him from pulling out his IV's and keep the nurses with needles/meds away! Although he had been on his own prior to this, he really was ready for assisted living - so we made that transition after the surgery (hospital to rehab to assisted living).
Talk to the docs and make sure they understand what her functioning was like before this and try to get them to discontinue any non-essential meds that might be causing the problems. Good luck.
This also happened to my mother. She saw spiders on the wall, thought she was in a room that also had motorcycles in there. She asked us to turn off the Xmas lights on the wall. I got scared, but found out it was the pain medication. Watch the tranquilizers too like they have said, they can really put them in a lot of confusion. Husband has dementia and they gave them to him and he got more confused. Talk to doctor about your concerns and see if they can try something else. I am sure she will come back to baseline, my mom did. Than Goodness.
Diane
Everytime my dad has had a procedure or an operation, he has gone down hill, to some extent. Sometimes, he does come back up a little, but some times, he is halfway to the next level and stays there!
Pain pill, valium, IVs, anything sort of shocking or really confusing or different affects him greatly!!!!! I think they just give too much to older people and do not realize that it affects them 2 times as much as younger or middle age people!
Some friends think that my dad started with his alzheimers problems, as long as 12 years ago (just slightly). That is when my sister died unexpectedly. Then some people, like me, think that it started when he had prostate cancer, about 6 - 7 years ago. Just had to go thru radiation, no operation. And since then, he has had 2 eye operations (out patient, but with drugs), 1 hernia operation (same), and 1 urology procedure. I will not let him have any other operations or procedures. It is just not worth it. Just makes him go to the next level.
I also think that my dad has had some mini strokes that went undetected. He is now in a good time, not going down, just staying the same and not irate at all. He may be a little depressed, tho.
Now, my mom is a totally other case!!!!! I do not anyone could figure out how she got dementia!!!!! The granddaughters have called her "bonkers" (in private) for at least 10 - 15 years! :>
Confusion after surgery 
Linear Mode
