I am in a nursing home watching myself cognitively decline.

If it hasn't been long since your surgery, it could be the anesthesia causing some, or all, of your issues. Anesthesia can cause post-operative delirium (POD) in older people. This happened to my mother. She has gotten much, much better over the month and a half since her surgery though. My mom has also been taking Lexapro (which can help with depression, anxiety, paranoid thinking, etc.) for about 1 month.

I hope you feel better soon!

Oh you are probably very scared and anxious. There are many possibilities for this including anesthesia reaction. Try your best to exercise because it increases blood flow to the brain. If it is depression try upbeat music from your youth. Also ask to see a neurologist for an accurate evaluation.

My mother had a hemorrhagic stroke of the left hemisphere, but I could tell as soon as she was fully awake the next day that her RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE was INTACT.

She was 85 at the time, and after 2 days in the hospital demanded that be allowed to go home, and her neurologist permitted it.

She lived 5 fulfilling years more in her little cottage BY HERSELF with some help from nearby relatives and me, finally broke her hip just before her 90th birthday, and lost her ability to live alone, I think because of the anesthesia.

If you are able to do so, strongly request a speech/language evaluation by a therapist with experience in geriatric clients.

If the speech eval. reveals LANGUAGE ISSUES, then ask for a cognitive evaluation as intense as you can tolerate (sometimes they can take a few hours).

When Mom returned home SHE rehabbed her speech skills BY HERSELF, to the extent that she could, and would WRITE in notes what she couldn’t say. Your short, explicit, intact note here suggests that you may in fact have useable language skills, and that is VERY IMPORTANT.

DON’T give up on yourself! You have a whole bunch of cheerleaders right here who are in your corner!

PLEASE KEEP IN TOUCH.

"...when the wanted words just will not come." sounds like the TIA I experienced following a heart catheterization, although I only experienced this for about 5 minutes - diagnosis was a TIA with no noteable impacts, presumably because it cleared so quickly. Because you can communicate, even if not to your usual standard, you probably do not have much lasting damage IF you suffered a TIA. Depression is likely. When we're older we often don't handle hospitalizations as well as we did when younger; it may take us longer to recover from anesthesia and surgery too.

I recommend not worrying about it unless the condition persists after you're home or have recovered from your surgery.

If the home offers some programs you would like to participate in (card games or singing), I recommend attending as your energy allows. Getting out of your room, even if just to enjoy the view out a different window, can help your mood.

This may sound ridiculous but have you spoken to your doctor and the rest of the staff about this? That would be my number one suggestion. If your niece is your go to for your medical needs in case of an emergency and they need someone else’s permission then I’d say get her involved. She may be able to communicate more clearly what it is you’re experiencing especially with the speak difficulties you’re experiencing. My other thought is do you have an infection of any kind that you know of? My husband is currently in a SNF getting treatment on an infection in his bone and at the first “skilled” home they didn’t believe him or have him seen soon enough so it spread and cause incredibly bad dementia. He’s coming around a little bit now but at the beginning he couldn’t even tell you his name or birthday. (I’ll be suing that place just FYI) He’s in a much better place now but it will just take time to get it cleared up. They have said that pain can cause this kind of confusion and difficulty. It’s a terrible thing to experience and I’m so sorry to you. I will pray for a quick recovery and for everything to turn out well. I’m sure it’s nothing as traumatic as what my husband has gone thru but I do know how scary it is for the person experiencing this. Take it easy on yourself while healing and maybe ask staff if they could recommend any kind of therapy to practice and help getting your level of cognizance back. sometime if you repeat what people are saying to
you back to them it can help them know you understand and it helps your brain make the connection. Something like that they might know of to do, practice, memory games. Idk but I’m sure they’ve seen this before. Talk to everyone until you get heard. Best of luck

I'm so sorry you are there. It sounds like depression. Hopefully you'll improve and your experience there will get better. I sure hope you're not there long.🙏🏾

My heart goes out to you, and I can only imagine the dread of this looming diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease hanging over your head. You mentioned that the nurse practitioner told you that you were not experiencing a stroke. With your familial medical history of Alzheimer’s disease, it’s time for you to see a MD in order to monitor your condition. I know for a fact that a NP must work under the auspices of a MD, but with your familial medical history, you need to be monitored directly by a MD. Perhaps it might be depression as you believe or perhaps it might be some other medical condition. Discuss all of your symptoms with your doctor and he/she will be able to provide the proper treatment for your ailment.

Hoping for the best for you.

Keep speaking about this with the doctors. Ask for a neuro consult. Your writing here is PERFECTION so clearly you can think and you can communicate. For some who have had a small stroke it can manifest just as you say, and writing can be done with ease while speaking causes a flood of word confusion for a while. These cannot always be identified on scan, but scan I believe you should have.

To me what this actually sounds like is classic anxiety attacks. Your head is flooded with new thoughts and you CLEARLY need help whatEVER is going on. Ask to see the social work at once. Show them what you have written here so they can see how clear this is, and how muddled it comes out when you go for verbal communication. Meanwhile, deep breath as much as you can. Take your time. Know that all you are dealing with right now is totally CRAZY MAKING. Many of us here have done the cancer journey (I did with breast cancer 35 plus years ago, two positive nodes; Midkid, Lealonnie1 has. Many of us. And the VERY FIRST THING I tell anyone entering this path is that it is crazy-making. Don't expect normal. There's nothing normal in this world where your life as you know it just had a grenade lobbed into it.

My best out to you and PLEASE update us because so many of us will be thinking about you.

Anyway possible you could move closer to your niece?
my friend moved her great aunt from back East to her state in the west so she can keep a watchful eye on her, and spend good quality time as well..
it does help to keep your Loved ones close.
get rest. Do participant in outings, games, and social events. Even if you just go for 5 minutes. Build up your time from there. It’s ok. Just saying hello to another resident or caretaker will give you a bit more energy.

If your facility has social hours, games, daily news, puzzles, ; you don’t need to join the activity at first, just observe and get acclimated to the activities and everyone. It can be overwhelming.
Take care.

Wend, how are you feeling this week?