I am attaching a series of links below exploring different issues your email here is touching on. First are commentaries explaining what one person can and cannot do to help another to quit.
These next five links address the issue of trying to find out why your mother is having the specific symptoms she is having now. Those answers are going to have to come from your mother's physician--he or she is the only person who has first hand knowledge and can run true physical tests to determine the cause of specific symptoms.
As far as for concerns of panic attacks, the next article and the attached article at the end address panic attacks directly.
Hope this all helps.
Joel