I'm not sure where this goes as it's quite a complex issue. Mom is 80 and has some dementia. She's also been having chronic UTIs the last few years. Mom had to go to the hospital on New Year's Day with a bad UTI. Once released a week later, she went to rehab only to have another UTI. In the last 60 days, she's had four UTIs (or one they can't get rid of) and is now back in the hospital. The other issue is that she has a compression fracture in her lower spine causing her great pain. They found this by doing a MRI where she had to have anesthesia because she moved around too much when they tried it the day before. Since that time, she's been very lethargic. She sleeps most the time, has no appetite and crys a lot. We're now four days removed from the time she was on anesthesia for her MRI. The docs say her UTI is gone after three days of IV antibiotics. She was on morphine a few days due to the intensity of her back pain. She was taken off it three days ago. She hadn't eaten anything for five days until last night when she had a Ensure-like product and a popsicle. She still has no appetite. Can't talk (but babbles sometimes). She totally looks out of it for most of the time. We're not seeing improvement as fast as we thought we'd see. They won't put her in a back brace until she's more cognitive. She's got to eat more soon or they will use a feeding tube. She won't take her usual meds either (diabetes, cholesterol, blood pressure). Anyone have any thoughts on this? We're very worried.
And I agree with Barb. Get her pain under control. That can only help.
Dementia patients are notoriously bad at reporting pain.