She can do her daily living activities but with help..she has 24 hour caregivers...the only medication she takes is blood pressure...her sudden confusion consists of her not knowing where she is & not remembering she’s lived there for over 20 years...any thoughts?
I would, also, have her checked for a UTI.
Sometimes people don’t think things will matter, but they do.
I stopped tidying up my girl’s rooms when they were teens because they couldn’t find anything if I moved everything around. They knew where everything was, organized chaos! LOL
But moving furniture can be very confusing. I would put it back where it was before. (unless the placement was a danger, posing a trip hazard. If that is the case she will eventually get used to the new placement. Keeping her safe is priority)
Here's some funny stories for perspective.
When we lived in North Carolina, my husband had a job where he travelled almost 3 weeks out of the month. If he was going somewhere "nice", I would go along with him for a week or 2. He was gone more than at home so we had 2 funny/weird incidents:
Once when we were home and in bed, he looked up at the ceiling and said, "Which hotel has ceiling fans?" I said, " You're home."
Like many men, he prefers to drive when we're in the car together. I can count on both hands the number of times he "passed" the house on the way home from somewhere. He saw it so infrequently, it didn't register in his brain what it looked like.
So changes in room set-ups can cause confusion since it doesn't look like "home."
But yes, check for uti.
UTIs do odd things, esp when dementia is involved. Subsequent UTIs showed up as night time bed wetting (read SOAKING), but once treated, it stopped.
You can start with a home test, but they aren't always sensitive enough. Sometimes it takes a culture test. You can also try moving the furniture back to where it was and see if that helps. Changes are not good for those with dementia. Routines and where things have been for a long time are important!
You have to stick with routine from now on. The only thing that I can add here is if this came from out of the blue (even though it happened about the same time as moving furniture) have her urine checked for infection. Urinary infection symptoms like confusion, anger, other behavior issues can come on very quickly and some will think the person has has some kind of stroke or mental event. If she doesn't already have one, get dr to do an order for visiting nurse. The nurse can do all kinds of lab work so that mom doesn't have to go into the drs office.
See All Answers