AboutMargot RN BScN GNC Expertise GERONTOLOGY (NURSING ISSUES RELATED TO THE ELDERY) I have 15+ years experience working with the elderly. I would be pleased to offer any assistance I can. My areas of expertise include: Gerontology / Geriatrics, Long Term Care, Community Nursing, Palliative Care, Private Nursing Services, Intermediate / Extended Care. I also have a personal interest in Homeopathic and Eastern Medicine. If I can not answer your question I`ll do my best to direct you to an appropriate resource. Thank you.
Experience I have fifteen years experience in Gerontological Nursing both in the community, and in Long Term Care. I have worked as a General Duty Nurse, a Nurse Manager, and a Nursing Consultant in Long Term Care and Community Nursing.I have a great deal of experience working with, assessing, and educating in the field of Gerontology (Nursing the Elderly). I am familiar with the challenges associated with Dementia (Alzheimer's), Chronic and Terminal illnesses. Experience in the area 20 years of Long Term Care and Community Nursing, specialising in Geriatrics, Gerontology and PalliativeCare.
Education/Credentials Registered Nurse , Certified Gerontological Nurse, Bachelor of Science in Nursing.
Question My mother is 72 and in the last 2-3 months we have noticed that she seems to be confused. It is like she is drunk or on high on something. She has some memory loss but nothing that she doesn't recall later. She may forget what she had for lunch but as you keep talking she will remember. We took her to her doctor and he gave her a memory test, asked her some questions and had her draw a clock. Her score was 19, he said thathe was surprised that she scored so low. So he put her on aExelon patch and he did a MRI that showed she had had a previous stroke how old we don't know. I was wandering if maybe whe could be having a reaction to her medication. This confusion seemed almost to happen overnight. She takes Metoprolol Tartarte 50 twice a day. Triamterene-htcz one a day, Alendronate once a week, and Lipitor one a day. She takes 2 os-cals and one centrum. Could all of these be having a side?
Answer Hi Sandra and thanks for writing,
It’s a bit challenging to guess without knowing your Mother’s full medical history and her current test results, but I can share some general information.
Usually when we see someone older start to get confused we look for treatable causes and don’t right away write it off as ‘Dementia’; I hope her doctor ruled out common treatable causes of confusion before he ordered the Exelon Patch.
The most common cause in older people is a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) due to decreased fluid intake, dehydrating medications (like the Triamterene she is taking) and of course the female anatomy works against us, especially if we’re incontinent. I would ask her GP to do a simple Urinalysis to rule this out.
Of course many other medications can also cause confusion or delusions, especially if your Mother doesn’t eat or drink much which will allow the medication to build up in her system as it’s not flushed out fast enough. Confusion can be a sign of medication toxicity which can easily be detected with a simple blood test to show serum levels. I would ask him to look into the Metoprolol Tartrate levels as it certainly can cause confusion.
Those are the two most common causes of treatable delusions in the elderly. Another very common but obviously not treatable cause of behavioural changes is CVAs (Strokes) and TIAs (Mini-strokes) which can not be detected without a CT Scan – but even if we confirm a stroke with a scan, we can’t treat them, we simply then know a possible cause of the confusion, but in all honestly, I don’t think this is the case with your Mother from how you describe it.
So my advice is to talk to the doctor about looking for treatable causes of the confusion, if her doctor won’t help (sadly, not all doctors are that interested in our elders), speak to your doctor or ask for a referral to a Gerontologist.
