Mom (76) ran out in traffic screaming because "a voice" told her to do it or she would be killed. Hospital released her in 3 hrs. Thoughts?

These medications she is on is to treat schizophrenia. Is that what she has?

And she drinks too as you said on another thread and is in detox? If she is drinking and on all of these meds I am not surprised. She needs a thorough workup, detox and a desire to stop drinking. Where did she get all these meds? From a doc? Prescriptions? Anything bought on the street you never know what may be in them.

She's on two antidepressants and two antipsychotics. That's kind of a no no, are they in the process of changing the meds and tapering one? It makes no sense to me why she would need to be on two. Someone with psychosis should also have someone handling their meds for them. Accidents can easily happen.

To answer your question, dementia does not progress that fast. She could have been having symptoms that no one noticed for a while but this doesn't really sound like dementia to me. The psychosis could be caused by the meds.

Alva is a nurse. I just worked with RNs and my daughter is one and I question the use of all these drugs. I agree that Mom needs to be taken off of everything. Her evaluated after tests have been done to make sure nothing is in her system then the drugs introduced one at a time.

Echoing Alva and Bridger, I literally gasped at this cocktail of drugs.   What kind of doctor prescribed these?  Or is this a blend of scripts from doctors who aren't working together?

If she was to be scheduled for further eval, wasn't the hospital in a position to do it then?   It seems to me that her behavior dictated more workup, then, or discharging her with a script to have further workup done. 

The questions you asked can't really be answered succinctly as we don't know what hospital, what was done, other than a CAT scan, and more specifically, why the hospital didn't schedule these.   It's been my experience that hospitals have done this, but the pandemic demands may have altered ER behavior.   Or the hospital is owned by a company that looks only to the bottom line as opposed to therapeutical behavior.

And on Tuesday, the first issue I'd raise is the cocktail of drugs.

I worry about that mix of drugs as well. This is an amazing cocktail. She likely needs to be in hospital for withdrawal from these meds to see what her baseline is and that MRI to see what the abnormalities are. I am so sorry you are going through this. Await that urinalysis report (likely a C&S will take minimal three days). But abnormality seen in the brain and they have her on these meds? I think I may consider the ER dump until they admit and work her up. That would entail refusal to take her home. You can make up anything you like, but it needs to involve that you are "afraid" to have her in your home under these conditions and cannot accept her back home. They need to do a workup here, not just continue to throw on more psychotropics which may be worsening the condition by a LOT.

That’s a serious mix of psychotropic drugs. I would get a psychiatric consult with medication review. There may be drug incompatibilities that cause many side effects.

Delirium caused by an infection. Why is she on the heavy duty psych meds if she doesnt have a neurocognitive impairment diagnosis? Severe depression can cause psychosis...How long has she been having symptoms? PTSD isn't generally diagnosed because of a death, did he die in a traumatic way and she witnessed it? Are you sure the diagnosis isn't Persistent Complex Bereavement Disorder? It's a trauma and stress related disorder but isn't PTSD. Is mom in a care facility and how long ago did the husband die?