Indeed, have some testing done. Short-term memory loss can be due to many different things, ranging from “polypharmacy” (too many medications) to physical illness (my mother’s gets worse when she has a bladder infection) to inadequate oxygen to brain damage from strokes, Parkinson’s Disease, or Alzheimer’s. You need to find out why she is having this problem. Only then can you and her doctors figure what, if anything, can be done to help her.
My mother is suffering from memory problems because she has Parkinson’s, and because she has heart and clotting problems that periodically drop her blood oxygen levels to 40%. It gets worse when she has a bladder infection. We help her by keeping her on medications to regularize her heart beat, coumadin to prevent clot formation, oxygen as needed when the first two meds don’t work, Zyprexa, an anti-psychotic as well as Requip, a dopamine agonist that directly stimulates the receptors in nerves in the brain that normally would be stimulated by dopamine, and we have her checked periodically for infection, which we then treat with antibiotics.
The combination helps her a great deal, although eventually, even with our best efforts, she will have to go to a nursing facility. I hope your mother’s problem is either transient or easily treated.