i always thought brain met-related dementia was progressive. on sunday i opened a new pt with lung ca for home care. she was sleepy but with it when spoken to. on tuesday i received a call from her daughter that she was concerned about her mom, because mom was having trouble remembering when she took her prn morphine. i went over there and mom was definitely confused. i broached the subject of 23-hr caregivers, but mom wasn't having none of that. i came up with a med plan with daughter, to make it easier to keep track of when the morphine is taken.
yesterday she had chemo. daughter called me afterwards and said the onc said that mom needs 24-hr care, that the confusion was too great and a big change since last weekend. i told the daughter how to go about finding caregivers.
today (my day off) i got a call from the woman that runs the caregiver referral service. the cops wanted to talk to me. i thought, "oh ****, i missed something." turns out mom herself called the cops because she wanted her meds back. (daughter and i decided that it would be best if meds were out of mom's grasp and monitored.) mr. cop wanted my opinion and the doc's about whether or not mom is a danger to herself.
that's a 4-day time span. brain met has not yet been diagnosed, but can that cause confusion this quickly?
