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Thank you! This helps so much.
I didn't realize UTI could cause problems like that! She was unable to leave a specimen at the doctor's last week so I have the items needed to collect a sterile specimen which I will do today.
With mobility issues, it may be that your mother needs all of her attention on walking. Respect that.
What is the "spacing out" like? Does it happen only in the walk-or-talk situations or at random times? How long does it last? Does she have a blank look on her face? (I might stop talking while I'm driving, but I don't space out!)
Since we started dealing with it, I have heard from many others that this is a “thing”. Doing multiple tasks at once becomes more and more difficult as cognition weakens.
The space out look, maybe it is a side effect of whatever medication Mom is taking. Even if she had been taking the same pills for a long time, sometimes pharmaceutical manufacturers use different material as fillers in the pills to make the pill large enough to handle..... binders to keep the pill together...... and coatings to make the pill easier to swallow. Some people are sensitive to those items.
It could be that your Mom is now only able to concentrate on one thing at a time. Thus she concentrates on walking only. Then when she stops, then she can concentrate on talking.