My mother was vibrant and active until a fall at home. She was initially misdiagnosed by the ER and sent home. 24 hours later she was in such severe pain she couldn't walk. She fell again trying to get out of bed 48 hours later. That is when we noticed increased confusion. Another 24 hours later she was fully delirious. We took her back to the ER where they performed a CT scan of her hip, and low and behold it was shattered. Hip was repaired, but the delirium has not resolved. It's 1-week post surgery.
The fall must have caused a lot of pain. This may have been the problem especially if Dementia is involved. Now it could be going under and the pain killers she is on. Look the pain killer up and see the side effects. They can cause what ur describing.
Where is she now? In rehab? If so, the trauma of falling, intense pain, confusion, ER and operating room experiences and now a different living place could be contributing to the confusion, but there could be more to the issue than that.
What I would do is order a copy of the medical records, all of them, to see what meds were administered, and take the records to perhaps a neurologist for review and analysis. This isn't for legal purposes; it's for analytical purposes to see if a med pro can identify the source, or possible source of the confusion.
Alternatively, if you have a neurologist or other doctor w/I the same hospital, he/she most likely can pull the records from the central computer data records. That's the best and quickest way to get records.
Another issue is that the circumstances have changed so much they've induced confusion; there's just too much to deal with, and it's hard to sort things out - I call it the superconducting supercollider effect - my brain particles become scrambled and don't function properly. Happens to me regularly!
I hope she rallies soon.
What kind of pain meds is she on? They can throw a person for a loop as well. My MIL was incredibly loopy on tramadol.