Parent delusional with UTI

[Sayoonara]

Some advice please.

DF is 88, has brain atrophy so signs of dementia for a couple of years (to the extent he can't be left alone for more than a few hours).

He is currently in hospital with covid and a UTI, and is very delusional. I am worried about what his eventual capacity will be when these die down. He lives with my DM who is able, but I'm not sure how much she could cope with him if he becomes really impaired. I live several hours away. They can afford carers to come in.

What would the hospital do if he just doesn't regain capacity, or it takes months? DP have private health care but I don't know when or how that could be implemented. I have Health PoA for him.

Best case scenario is he gets back to normal in a few days and goes home, but I'd like to be prepped for worst case.

so UTIs at that age do make people go loopy. My Gran was off the wall in hospital. Talking about highland raids and cattle rustlers who came into the ward at night and fought with the nurses. Once the antibiotics kicked in she was back to old self.

That's good to hear. Do you remember how long it took?

My mum had this and within a couple of days was completely her normal self again. I reckon your best case scenario is what will happen with your dad.

Same happened to my mother and antibiotics did the trick in a matter of days.

If they would be self funding, now is a really good time to start looking at local home care agencies. Thinking of the future, not necessarily for now. There should be a frailty team at the hospital who would liase with the family and the discharge team around what is known as a 'safe discharge'. Do try to get in touch with them, especially if you think your mum will be unable to cope. Have a really good chat with your mum and see what she thinks.

It was a matter of days. Hope your dad is on the mend soon.

Thank you all. Yes the hospital has mentioned a frailty team.

I'll take it day by day and keep fingers crossed it passes quickly.

UTIs can make older people get confused , but so can the antibiotics. Dad had hallucinations with his recently.

@Sayoonara sorry to hear this but as others have said once the antibiotics kick in with a UTI things can really improve. However @WinterFrog makes sensible points. You may find that even with improvement your DF may have a new ‘baseline’ level of health and might not get better in the bigger sense of the phrase. Difficult conversations but perhaps learning about the discharge process in your hospital might be useful as someone mentioned the frailty team are a good place to start. Get as much help as is available. We ended up with DF in hospital then discharge to a reablement centre which whilst ok was really just not appropriate. In the meantime my sis and I were trying to get our mother and brother to see he needed full time nursing care as his consultant recommended. They refused to even consider this and faffed around for months making adaptations to a very unsuitable home which were just a waste of money and would never have helped. Dad moved into nursing care after a very professional team of nursing/OT/social workers took things out of our hands and imposed a Deprivation of Liberty on him so he had to be transferred to full time nursing care. Not trying to derail your thread just though it might help if you get an overview of us about 18 months ago. Dad is settled in the nursing home and whilst he wont get better we know he is in a better place than the chaos that home would have been - our mother is not a natural nurse! Good luck. Loads of sensible people on here with experience and advice by the bucket full

Thanks @BlueLegume , not a derailment at all. This is all unknown territory so it's really helpful to see others' experience.

We’re going through this too. Definitely talk to the discharge team about an occupational health and frailty team assessment and look at whether a reablement care package can be put in place.

@Sayoonara one other thing is do speak to your DF even if others tell you it is pointless. I found holding Dad’s hand and explaining we were trying to get him to a better place really helped and he did respond positively even though he is not really ‘present’ so to speak. Our mother was utterly belligerent and refused to take any sensible advice.

I'm glad our contributions are helpful. Do stick around on this board as so many of us here who who have or are walking the walk.

Communication is key, but some of our parents ( and us, of course) are better at that than others! It's certainly an easier path to tread if you have a good relationship with your folks, but of course there are many and varied reasons why this is not always the case. I wish your father a speedy recovery, but as @BlueLegume said, he may end up with a new health baseline, particularly if he is in hospital for a length of time.

@WinterFrog agree re communication. I have learnt so much over the years and it really helps knowing this is for the large part a safe place to vent.

Does anyone know why UTIs in more senior people makes them confused etc.? I don't recall feeling like that (or being told I was!) when I had a severe UTI last year.

I suppose it's age related, but it is so common when older folk become confused for it to be a UTI.

Hope all goes well for you OP. You are great to forward plan like this.

Happened to my mum too, when she had a UTI. Hallucinating. Disturbing dreams too.

Settled quickly once antibiotics kicked in although she had to discontinue them as they upset her digestion too much. Then she had to be seen in A&E for low potassium levels (quickly sorted out with IV drip, overnight).

Happened to my dad.

He was fine after a week.

Very very common.

I don't know either, but it's seems to be par for the course with older people. I wonder if it messes with potassium and sodium levels. It seems to happen without other obvious syptoms too. Odd.