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My mom is now 5 years into her dementia. She use to sleep very soundly, but within the past 3 months her sleep patterns have changed substantially. Her doctors agreed to increase Remeron at night for her anxiety/depression. However Remeron has had the opposite affect. She would get very mean, and was wide awake for 24 hours and then crash. I discontinued the Remeron at nighttime. She also takes Aricept and Cymbalta. She talks non-stop with the repeats and talks alot about her life as a child and more into the dark side (death). I am open for any suggestions. I must confess the constant talking really effects me more than it does her (maybe, not sure).

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My mom is nearing year 10 of Alzheimers. Her sleep patterns have changed. At first she slept until noon, and for many years fortunately didn't wander much. The last few years she has slept well, no wandering, and with coaxing got up around 9 or 9:30. She has started refusing to take her medicine and this has seemed to affect her sleep patterns again, and Dad has trouble getting her to stay down when she first goes to bed. So from my experience, this can be a problem, and the important thing is to keep them active during the day as much as possible, and unfortunately, sometimes medication is necessary, and you may have to try several to find what works. (If you can get them to take it.)
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I have had the same problems with my mom who is in mod/sever Alzheimer's. For the sleep pattern issues the trick is not to let her get her days and nights mixed up as well as keeping her active during the day so that she can sleep well at night. My mom has had the same effects with the anti-psychotic drugs - they make her psychotic so we don't give her anything. I signed her up for day care 5 days a week. She sleeps all weekend. The cost of this is pretty much what her social security pays so we look at it as a wash. She lives with us so she has no other bills other than medical which are covered by insurance and medicare.

She refuses to eat, says her stomach is constantly hurting and the minute she puts food in her mouth she starts complaining about pain. We've found that she developed ulcers which is part of the culprit. We give her an Ensure at each meal time so she is getting the nutrition she needs.

The only other thing that is troublesome is night wandering. Sometime she gets up when we are sleeping and walks outside looking for a dog she doesn't have. We ended up going to the hardware store and found an alarm system that chimes when the opened. This alerts us to any problems we might have and we're able to stop her before she damages herself.

Hope some of this is helpful to you.
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My wife is almost three years in dementia and from the somewhat sudden outset she has slept and slept, typical 20 hours out of the 24 hour day. No drugs have helped so far except possibly coconut butter, which helps create ketones to fuel her brain. ( I put it on her toast and marmalade) Currently we are trying Ritalin, a drug that has helped some patients with depression and dementia.
It may take an hour or more to awake my wife for food and toileting, unless I play some vintage sing along songs. Those awake her quite quickly, but she tires of them after an hour or so. In summary, coconut butter, vintage music, and tender love, are the only things that have helped in my wife's case.
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