My grandfather has Alzheimer's and wakes up almost every hour. How can my mother keep him from getting up all night?

Hi,
Sorry to hear what your Mom is going thru. My Mom has Alzheimers also, but knock on wood she sleeps thru the night so far. Although her doctor prescribed Ambien should she not sleep well. Has the doctor been told he doesn't sleep thru the night? He may need to be given something to sleep. Call his doctor and let him know what is going on. I am pretty sure he will give him something to sleep. I am also posting here because my Mother cannot get any type of home health care and I am at my wits end. I am sick myself and have to be her caregiver which I don't mind, but I thought I would never say, it does take a toll on you. I hate this Monster disease, thats what I call it, and there is very little resources to help us out with this.
Hope all works out. There are so many of us out there.

Ambien dose not help! All it dose is makes them sleepy it dose not help keep them asleep. I home care my husbands 98 year old grandmother with dementia and she is up just about every hour. And when I had given her that it just makes things worse. She still gets up and now because of the medication she is more off balance and out of it then she was without it. She walks with a walker and she's pretty off without having something fog her mind and make it worse. I'm still trying to get help with this. I get very little sleep because of this. We do the same thing every night and she gets plenty of light during the day and she still gets up all night. I have home care right now for a couple of weeks since she fell because she was out of it from the sleep aid she took that night. But when that ends I'm on my own again. Its not right when we save medicare tons of money by caring for them at home. We should have help with no out of pocket costs to care for them at home.

Ambien dose not help! All it dose is makes them sleepy it dose not help keep them asleep. I home care my husbands 98 year old grandmother with dementia and she is up just about every hour. And when I had given her that it just makes things worse. She still gets up and now because of the medication she is more off balance and out of it then she was without it. She walks with a walker and she's pretty off without having something fog her mind and make it worse. I'm still trying to get help with this. I get very little sleep because of this. We do the same thing every night and she gets plenty of light during the day and she still gets up all night. I have home care right now for a couple of weeks since she fell because she was out of it from the sleep aid she took that night. But when that ends I'm on my own again. Its not right when we save medicare tons of money by caring for them at home. We should have help with no out of pocket costs to care for them at home.

I am a caregiver of a 90 year old Alzheimers patient. She started getting up at night, getting dressed in the middle of the night and insisted on staying up because she thought it was morning. After many nights of loss of sleep, I was desperate, so I tried keeping all the lights off, except her night light in her bedroom in case she had to go into the bathroom. I had been leaving a light on in the kitchen as well as the safety lights outside the house, which shone in. Keeping things very dark in the rest of the house has worked very well, as she doesn't see any light from inside or outside which was confusing her. Hope this helps you!

ask the doctor for Ativan.......they sleep. or ask for Valium to calm them and they can rest......or take him out for a jog. apparently he may not be getting enough activity, or whatever they give those people in the INSANE hospitals to keep them calm.

It is really tough. He sleeps all day. We try to wake him, even take him for wheelchair walks even if he is asleep. Then at night hello? I've thought of putting the bed on the floor so he can't get up with a walker and fall. He's quiet and he can get standing before we can wake up, even when sleeping in the same room. I think he would make more noise and wake us sooner if he had to figure out how to get up or crawl off the bed. Is that mean, I think it is kinder than allowing him to fall and drugging him just makes him more likely to fall. He is scared of breaking his hip, but mnot mentally there enough to stop himself from getting up alone at night. This is a big problem. In the hospital they tied him down, which I understand, yet that is a horrible feeling and I'm sure abusive at home. I agree that the alternative is much more expensive as he would need ot go full time to a nursing home, not have his dog or family and would caost society a lot more. Why can the government have those who are unemployed and on unemployment made available as caregivers while they are waiting for work. I'm sure there are many good compassionate people on the government's payroll who could help our aging society and exhausted neighbors.

A motion detector and/or a baby monitor can alert you that he is up. A better solution is to get him to sleep through the night. Discuss this with his doctor, emphasizing that the solution will help keep him home longer. A doctor would probably try various drug therapies, starting with the most beneign and moving to more powerful choices if the first ones don't work. People react differently to drugs, so adjusts to dosage or a different drug may be needed. Don't consider the doctor incompetent if the first one doesn't work -- trial and error is normal.