Anesthesia and dementia.

She came through ok so far. She is talking out of her head a bit. I was told that it would take about 6 months to come back to normal. But she had already gotten to the stages of falling and wetting herself and hiding everything. I am afraid that this has progressed it a bit faster if she had not had the surgery.She is 82. Her moods are good one minute and then bad the next.

Knowing what I do now I wish I had not had my mom have surgery that involved anesthesia. She stopped reading, couldn't balance her checkbook, handwriting changed and her temperament changed. Normally sweet she started saying unkind things to me and accused someone of pushing her. My MIL needs to have some surgery soon and we are saying no to anesthesia if at all possible.

Agreed, local anasthesia and sedation, nothing else. If she is over 80, general anesthesia can be problematic.

I would not ever put my mother under general anesthesia again. My mom absolutely began to decline after a hip replacement. See if the doctor would consider an epidural. That is what I would do. Good luck.