Britney Spears returns to psych ward

Amid an orgy of flashing lights, police sirens and chopper blades, pop tart Britney Spears made a comeback of sorts Thursday - returning to a Los Angeles psychiatric ward.

A motorcade stretching the length of a football field whisked the singer to the UCLA Medical Center for a 72-hour stay after another "sad, sad evening" for the endlessly erratic entertainer, according to a family source.

"I don't know about Britney," her grandfather, June Austin Spears, told the Daily News. "I'm worried about her. She shouldn't go in the nut house.

"Sometimes you come out worse than you come in."

Sources said Britney Spears was up without sleep for three days and driving like a madwoman through her exclusive California neighborhood before she was hospitalized.

Celebrity Web site TMZ.com said Spears told doctors she was taking Adderall, a drug used to treat attention deficit disorder, and as many as 10 laxatives a day.

Spears, 26, has been classified as "G.D.," gravely disabled, which means she is unable to take care of her personal needs, such as food, clothing and shelter, TMZ.com also reported.

The classification is one of the criteria for involuntary commitment.

Some sources said the pop tart was refusing to take her prescription medicine when the strange behavior began.

A photographer staking out her Studio City mansion said she was disoriented and slurring her words. "She was really confused, like she didn't know where to go," he said. Sipping a Red Bull and wearing sunglasses, Spears started driving to a nearby dance studio before abandoning her plans and coming home, he said.

She was in the house early Thursday with her mother, Lynne; a friend, Alli Simms, and manager Osama Lutfi when the psychiatrist called the Los Angeles Police Department to commit her, published reports said.

"Her daddy and [her brother] Bryan had a lot to do with it," said the singer's 77-year-old grandfather. "They want what's best for her."

Police arrived shortly before 1 a.m., and she was loaded into an ambulance within 10 minutes for a hurried trip down Coldwater Canyon Blvd., police said.

The post-midnight motorcade was more fit for a President than a pop star: 11 police motorcycles and two police cars, with a pair of LAPD helicopters hovering above the ambulance carrying the distressed singer.

A source inside the Spears camp insisted the platinum-selling star was very calm and went willingly with police after they arrived at her house.