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My mother fell, shattered her femur bone and had to undergo emergency surgery for repair. She had general anesthesia and my mother was talking fine the day before and now she can barely communicate. She had a MRI performed to look for signs of a stroke. The test came back negative and DRS do not know why this is happening and cannot provide a reason for this. I know falling can be traumatic for the elderly and hopefully she can regain her speech again.

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Take a good look at what medications she is on, and make sure they are all correct, very often the information gets scrambled in the ER. Ask for a Neurologist to do an EEG and find out what is misfiring. Get a copy of the anesthesia logs and review them, look for any abnormal vital signs. If they will not cooperate, file a complaint with the Joint Commission and they will investigate independently. www.jointcommission.org
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Google conversion disorder and stuttering after surgery. I just read an interesting article about a nursing student who had surgery and then started stuttering. They told her she had conversion disorder after ruling out anything else. It's basically a psychological reaction to stress/trauma. And with your mom's case, there was definitely stress!

In the young nurse's case, her stuttering went away after a few weeks of therapy. I have no idea if that's what's going on with your mom, but it's worth checking into. You can also google sudden onset stuttering and look up the possible causes. Stroke is one, but it sounds like they've ruled that out in your mom. How old is your mom?
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I can only hope with you that Mom can regain her speech. Having a general anesthetic can do damage to the elderly and I hate to speculate on what could have happened in your mother's case. Can she still understand what is going on around her and respond appropriately to questions appropriately with a nod of her head or squeezing your hand. Can she communicate by writing.?
How long is it since she had the surgery? can she still do other things as before? she is still probably receiving strong pain killers which she does need in the early days and these effect people differently and she may be better when these can be tapered off as the pain lessens. Is she able to eat and drink? All you can do is hope her speech returns within a few weeks. She can have help from a speech therapist. Keep in touch. Other people will have had experience with elderly loved ones needing emergency surgery.
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