Am I right to call 111?

You will soon stop being cautiously optimistic.

Your main plan now should be for her to be admitted to hospita,. From which she will need a care plan. At which point you DO NOT say you can care for her in any way.

Totally agreed. Sadly it does sound like dementia.

And if she say's she's taken them, and they're not in the packet? Look in the bin.

have left 3 individual doses with written instructions to take Wednesday morning and afternoon and Thursday morning

She won't take them, OP.

Does she drive? If so, you need to stop her.

I agree with @BigFluffyHoodie . It's SO easy to fall into the caring role and it's almost expected. Social care is so stretched that they will try anything into guilt trip you into it. You need to be very very firm and stand your ground. Do you have siblings?

I recognise a lot of what you are talking about from my dad's dementia. Any illness made it 10 times worse but the low level "well" symptoms were bad enough. It's interesting that you post she's worse in the evening - look up sundowning and see if it rings any bells. Dad would regularly say he was going out (he wasn't) and would get very paranoid about people in the house and accuse mum of trying to poison him when she was asking him to take medication.

I am not trying to scare you but dementia is a one-way journey, it's just the speed of that journey which varies. There are lots of us on this forum who have been through it, or are going through it.

I'm not sure what the exact term is. But you need to be there, the hospital's social worker, her key carers from the ward, and probably occupational health.

DO NOT LET THEM DISCHARGE HER TO YOUR CARE.

Sorry to say, OP, that IMO you mother has dementia. It's not the UTI, it's not delirium.

The best thing you can do now is get her admitted to hospital, for whatever reason. Once there, demand a care plan before she is discharged. Do not, under any circumstances, tell them that you are prepared to do any care for her at all at home. She needs a 365 assessment. Ask for one of these.

Have you got a Plan B if she refuses to get into the car?

I would write out all the incidences and phone calls of last few days and forward it all to your GP before your visit so they have a v clear idea of how much she is halluncinating

@JamieFrasersSassenach no help I know ,but I'm thinking of you and sending strength your way for getting your mother to the GP today .
She's very very lucky to have such a kind daughter .

It’s so, very frustrating. My own MIL was always at the Drs, given various medications but after reading the leaflets and seeing side effects, threw them away. She was also very confused and bed bound, although no obvious reasons for this. GP came out and said she had a UTI and gave her antibiotics. I asked why she wasn’t taking them and she replied because they had to be taken with food. I got her various bits of food, but there was something wrong with all the food, so again she wouldn’t take tablets. Rang GP again and GP said they would call in to her later that day, but rang again to say they wouldn’t until she finished the antibiotics. We then called for an ambulance, as soon as her saw her, they wanted her admitted and although she was against it, they managed to persuade her. Once there, she was put in side room as she had a bad infection. She seemed to improve once on a drip, but I think the damage was already done, she wouldn’t eat, kept pulling out the drip, they had to sedate her. Whatever it was, it took over her mind, unfortunately. She was 84, but up until a few months previous was very active, she died 3 weeks later.

I would also be concerned about dementia. These are all the symptoms displayed by my father. His symptoms were made worse/more apparent when he had a UtI.

I managed to add him to on findmyfrind on my phone so I could track whether what he said was true ie going out. He would often leave his flat at 10:30 in the evening and walk in to town. He would try angle get into coffee shops and the wait at the bus stop. I would get in my car and just happen to be passing by and offer to pick him up and drive him home. He often thought visitors were in his flat.

He took all his fear/anger/frustration out on me. Went to the police, estate agents, town council to complain about me. The police would be called and then me to drive him home. But he was as nice as pie to his gp. It took one of his neighbours to make an anonymous call to adult social services to report him for anyone to take me seriously. Plus a visit to the police station with knives for the police to take me seriously. He then attacked me in his flat where I thought he was going to kill me. He launched an office chair at me and pinned me down on the bed with surprising strength. Thought I was going to suffocate and I am not a lightweight. Luckily a phone rang at that moment and distracted him enough for me to get out of the room whereby he swung punches at me. All I had to hand was a plastic hole punch and all I could think was oh god I'm going to have to hit my own father with a hole punch. I managed to some how not him any get out. Called the police who had not long left and my father was sectioned the next day.

A UTI had made all his dementia symptoms worse or he couldn't control them any more. It was a very distressful time.

He then went to a care home as his dementia had gone to the next level where he was not safe.

Sorry that story just poured out.

Hopefully your mum has a UTI that can be treated and all will be well. But be prepared that any illness can make underlying dementia symptoms more obvious.

Glad you’ve got an appointment for tomorrow. I hope she cooperates and goes with you easily.
once they realise the extent of the confusion it should help.

If you can find them before you go to the doctors take the antibiotics with you along with a bottle of water.
Try and get her to take the first tablet in the presence of the doctor!

If that doesn't work then I'd be asking for capsule type tablets so I could put her medication in her food for a day or two. It's not ideal but you're not going to get anywhere if she continues to refuse to take them.

All this sounds so familiar @JamieFrasersSassenach (I know I wanged on about my partner but I’ve had similar situations with my dad whilst I lived about 100 miles away).

I’m rooting for you and your mum and hopefully this time on Thursday she’ll be well into a course of AB’s and you’ll have a little room to breath. It’s hard work and puts you permanently on alert

I'm so pleased that you've got an appointment for tomorrow. It sounds as though the surgery staff were concerned by your mums confusion. Hopefully the doctor will be able to persuade her to take the antibiotics. She may well improve very quickly once they've started to work.

As your mum is so confused at the moment, is it possible that she's missing her other medication, which could be making things even worse? When my mum began to forget her warfarin and blood pressure medication, the GP was able to arrange for the district nurse to call on her twice a day to make sure she took her pills, which was a real lifesaver. This didn't help with her lunchtime medication but the doctor changed the dosage of everything so she only had to take her medication twice a day, under the supervision of the nurse. Before this happened, I was ringing my mum three times a day to try to get her to take her pills whilst I was on the phone, but I started to realise that she wasnt taking them. I know not all district nursing services provide a medication service but it might be something to think of in future if needed.

I really do feel for you, and the sense of helplessness is awful. One thing I found as my mum declined, and also with my mother in law who has also had dementia for some time, was that she really rallied in terms of her confusion whenever she saw a doctor, social worker etc. She always sounded very plausible when she spoke to anyone outside her immediate family, and talked lucidly about her past and family, but because the people didn't know her background, they didn't realise that 95% of what she said was total fiction.

It's horrible when your mum turns on you when you're trying to help, but try to remember that it's not really her being like this. I hope that your mums problems are just caused by the UTI rather than the start of dementia. No matter how upset she might get by her perception that you're interfering and trying to send her off to hospital etc, there will still be a part of her that will know you love her and are trying to help her.

Honestly I don't know if any of what she is telling me is true.

Specious - Plausible, but wrong. Became one of my favourite and most used words!
My relative used to tell me and others of fabulous days out, trips here there and everywhere, and, if you didn’t know their car was long gone you’d have been convinced they were living the life of Riley whereas the reality was they’d hardly left the house for years.
It’s frustrating difficult to get anyone, family or professionals to see how confused they were when they pass the where are you/whatday/who’s primeminister type questions with flying colours but can’t be relied upon to know if they’ve had breakfast or taken pills etc.
It can be so subtle, and if people don’t want to see it, easy to explain away.