My Mum is seeing things and hearing voices!

glassortwo if your mother has been living independently until now this must be a very sudden deterioration. Medical staff are all extremely busy - you need to push for a definite yes or no to the sepsis/septicaemia question, and your mother shouldn't be on her own.

patient.info/health/sepsis-septicaemia-leaflet

My dad was on morphine for a while and was seeing dragons and stuff so he came off it. See if she is on any new medication which might upset her

Agree with UTI, although DM had also not been eating as well due to not feeling well. That can also cause hallucinations and rapid deterioration in the elderly. DM was in hospital for weeks just to return to normal health so get help now - doctor's should base their opinion on evidence, not be know-it-alls!

My father told me that a choir of monks had come to sing to him at 5am. He also said that the police were running round town looking for him as they thought he was involved in a double murder. The police were carrying electronic screens with his face on it. This was before iPads came out. He had been such a sensible person and it was very worrying. It turned out that he was having TIAs. He had so many over a period of about six months that his brain became very damaged. He didn’t have any infections.

I had a long standing urine infection, which had started off as cystitis. It was treated with antibiotics, and the stinging, etc, went away. It was weeks and weeks later that I started to feel very unwell, although not bonkers. I couldn't work out what could be wrong, and it took a few months to clear. So, in answer to your question: I don't know!

Can UTI affect anybody in this alarming way, or is it just the elderly? Are we classed as elderly??Not having had any older relatives, have never heard about this before.

It could be medications.I recall at home after surgery seeing Huge ladybirds moving about on the coving.I knew they weren't really there but it was scary.It was the medication,and just in case you think I was old, I was only in my 30s!

Agree - get the UTI thing checked. Also can be an effect of mini strokes - best to know if it is (1) Helps her cope and not think she is 'goingmad/beinghorrible' (2) There may be things can be done to make them less. Mum had TIAs and was able to cope a lot better when she knew why she sometimes did or said odd things.

A 'memory test' (probably the MMSE) is not enough! You say things are getting worse ... I would take her to A & E. She's already been diagnosed with a pulmonary embolism, so she could have had more thrombi thrown off and lodged in the brain. Could also be delirium. Whatever it is, it needs urgent investigation. If you have a smart phone, could you video her talking about the things she's seeing/hearing? This would provide further evidence to show sceptical medics.

A UTI can soon morph into Sepsis. If my mother had been given intravenous antibiotics sooner she might have lived longer, but at 96 I think she had just come to the end.

Make sure that the doctors know what she was like before this started, otherwise they just think it's within the normal range for her age. Obviously, some 84-year-old are much fitter than others.

Is she on any medication that could cause this? Has she got a water infection? These two common causes of confusion in the elderly spring to mind. Did the trauma of the fall cause the problem? Does she need a brain scan to rule out any injuries when she fell? I hope it is only temporary but you need to get to the bottom of it...keep "nagging" the GP.

glassortwo - you say your mum 'fell' in the garden and lay there for a while. What did she fall over? How did she fall? Given her memory lapses and hallucinations just a week later I would put my money on the fact that she had a TIA and fell as a result of that rather than falling over a stone. The TIA would have no obvious effects upon her behaviour after 24 hours, indeed it may have none at all and therefore you wouldn't know, but it would have left a small scar somewhere in her brain and that would cause some impact on her cognitive functioning - not a lot, but enough to make her forget your dad was dead, and to confuse her. Yes, a UTI may be the culprit but my own mum 'fell' while shopping 30 years ago, I brought the GP to her because she seemed a bit confused after the fall, and while she claimed to have tripped over some concrete it turned out that this was a TIA that was subsequently followed a few years later by several more until she finally had a full blown stroke. Keep a very careful eye on her cognitive functioning whilst also getting a urine test.

I had the same as this with my grandma , she was diagnosed with a type of dementia not alzheimers, she was given meds which lessened these outbursts , it all started when she fell over after suffering a slight TIA .

You really need to sort out did she fall in the garden or did she collapse?
I agree a UTI is a common cause of sudden onset confusion in the elderly but I would hate for something to be missed

My DH was experiencing terrible hallucinations after they prescribed him the drug Tramadol for pain relief and stopped taking it himself regardless of what the Drs said. He was also on Warfarin, (a blood thinner) for a short time and again he made a conscious decision to stop taking that after an incident in the hospital My point is, it might not be any one drug but a combination of other drugs that your DM is taking which is causing the hallucinations? Please don't take everything the Drs say as gospel, research it yourself online first and read other user's experiences, make an educated decision about putting things into yours or a loved one's body XX

AMD can cause hallucinations. How is her eyesight?

You could just take a urine sample down to the surgery, at ours the nurse will dip it and if antibiotics are needed a prescription will be given without needing an appointment.

I agree with the people who suspect she has a UTI...this can cause hallucinations. I have seen this at first hand during the course of my work and with my late MIL. Also if she is starting to be become forgetful, insufficient fluid intake can lead quite quickly to a UTI in the elderly. It's really important to drink enough liquid every day to keep these infections at bay.

Was she on strong painkillers and antibiotics when she was in hospital? Is she still taking them - morphine based drugs can be the cause. This can cause weird things to happen as it did to me two years ago after heart surgery. I began to think in shorthand which I thought I had forgotten. Several times I saw someone who I was convinced was my Dad (dead for 10 years) but I was sufficiently with it to realise that it was all in my mind. I was 72 at the time. Does she have hearing problems - even though I am very deaf I can hear strange noises sometimes but it is usually my distorted sound pickup of a car going down the road. DH doesn't notice as it sounds normal to him. New hearing aids next week! She may be worried about this but keep reasoning with - nothing to be done really except love her to bits and keep her in touch with reality.

Good news that Mum's UTI has been diagnosed and treated.
I'm not suggesting that your Mum has this, but it may be useful for others to know that there is a form of dementia which causes hallucinations: Lewy Body Dementia (sometimes shortened to LBD or DLB). It also has elements of Parkinson's and can cause falls.

My mother who is in her nineties had a fall and was referred to a Falls Clinic. This has enabled us to access a lot of support, help and equipment that we didn’t realise we could obtain on NHS including carers and a Physio who comes to her home. It might not help with hallucinations but is worth looking into.

My Mum was in hospital when she lived in Wales and the only diagnosis I ever got was that she had been simply dehydrated - she was very confused and thought Mrs Thatcher had collapsed In Parliament.

But - they didn't diagnose the broken ankle she came out of hospital to Oxford with!! So perhaps there was more to her confusion....

In both my mum and mother in law a fall was the start of vascular dementia . Could she have banged her head or had a small bleed that caused her to fall . If it isn’t a urine infection I wold nag for a brain scan .

They can take a few courses of antibiotics to clear. I think low grade infections can sometimes have gone unnoticed for a long time, so they've taken quite a hold.

At present my 89-year-old sister-in-law is in hospital with a UTI. She’s been there for a week, having been taken by ambulance late at night as it was thought she was having a heart attack. She was suffering chest pains and was sweating, with no symptoms of UTI.
She’s experiencing hallucinations- mainly seeing dead relatives, who sat with her holding her hands. They are as real to her as I was, when I was sitting with her last night and she seemed to gain a lot of comfort from them being there. However, a week with no improvement from UTI does seem along time, don’t you think?