My Mother is now 84 years old and has had vision, mobility, COPD and other issues common in a person of her age for the last three or four years. For the most part, she has maintained a status quo until about a month or so ago. I have noticed that recently she has a difficult time catching her breath, she is exhausted, and she is often confused. For example, she confuses noontime with midnight. She has called me at 1am asking me where I am, because she thinks it 1pm and I should be with her. The other day, she made herself breakfast at 6pm because she thought it was 6am.
These changes have appeared rapidly. She had an appointment with her primary care doctor last week and he didn't find any drastic changes in her. I definitely see things getting worse. I just came from her house and found her curled up in bed at two o'clock in the afternoon. I am afraid to imagine what things will be like in another month. She appears to be rapidly declining. Is it common for things to go south so quickly? She was stable for quite a long time. One last thing I forgot to mention, she has a leaky aortic valve that may be worsening.
Low O2 saturation
UTI
If those two are fine, get her in to an interventional cardiologist for a sonogram of her heart
My DH's EKG was just fine. But the aortic aneurysm that was caused by the leaky valve was absolutely silent, except for is suddenly disordered mentation.
Sounds like mom needs a few more tests and a visit with the cardiologist to check into her leaky aortic valve.
Best of luck.
COULD BE ANYTHING is the point
Give the MD all of the symptoms here and she really needs a good going over in every way. Something is up and you are well aware of this change and the sudden onset of it all.
I wish you luck and hope you will update up. KEEP THIS APPOINTMENT.