My 87 year old mother has been living with me for a year now. I placed a baby monitor in her room because she has fallen off her bed a couple of times. So with the baby monitor I hear everything. Lately she has been talking all night long. She gets out of bed and I think she is sleep walking because she doesn't know where she is at. Is this normal?
My mother was diagnosed with mild dementia, possibly Alzheimer. We are waiting to do more test.
Any ideas?
I want to thank you for everything you are doing for your parents. God Bless you!
She has fallen repeatedly in her nighttime roaming in her apartment. Since the staff doesn't do checks nearly as much as the facility advertised, my sister (who is local) thought cameras advisable. Indeed, my sister alerted the facility to most of Mom's falls.
She has talked to herself, but she does that anytime.
She only takes warfarin and citalopram, and these are not thought to cause nighttime wakefulness. I really don't get why she must get up at night. She even changes into her street clothes. Sometimes it seems to be confusion as to time. A few nights ago, she was being particularly vigorous, shall we say, so my sister called her and asked, "Why did you get up?" and Mom answered in a loud, annoyed tone, "Because I wanted to!"
My own thinking is that she has an overly active brain (highly anxious), and just HAS to get up and check things out. She also told my sister she didn't want to die in her PJ's!
I'm not sure there's anything that can be done except try to keep them safe. We have largely succeeded in getting Mom trained to use that walker all the time, even at night. So, no falls for several weeks now.
It is called that because in general most people who suffer from this DO seem to have it occur in that time period. The timing and symptoms can vary from one person to another. When I forwarded an article about sun-downing, one brother only looked at the title of the link (it referred to sleep disorders) and he said she doesn't have a sleep problem. ARGH, the dummy! I just replied read the article!!
So, in mom's case, she was living alone at the time and we had installed some cameras to monitor who was coming/going and to "see" her daily to ensure all was well (the closest any of us were was about 1.5 hour, so we couldn't check daily.) Anyway, the time mom started her "routine" coincided with bed-time, which could vary a bit, but generally not earlier than 9-930PM. It started out a night here and there, a few iterations, no big deal. This developed into a nightly marathon, at least an hour, usually an hour and a half of checking the door lock, the sidelights, something in the kitchen that we couldn't see on camera, something in the LR we also couldn't see, but the "pass through" opening between the dining area and kitchen let the light shine through when she turned the light on/off. Eventually when one brother was there we found out the kitchen trip was to check the dishwasher. She would do this over and over and OVER for the entire hour to hour and a half! That brother tried calling her to stop her - I tried to tell him that she isn't even aware she is doing this, so your call isn't going to do anything! Sure enough, she would tell him she's just about to go to bed and instead there would be several more trips. Another time she told him he got her out of bed (which wasn't true - we had camera proof!)
So, this clearly was not a late afternoon or early evening issue, and she wasn't out of control like some people experience, it was just an odd OCD behavior. The list of possible symptoms don't seem to include anything like this, but there was no other explanation for it.
They DO however mention having a UTI or other infection being a possible trigger for sun-downing as well. When I first read about that, I was skeptical, however mom got a UTI when at the MC place and was out of control later afternoon, early evening!! Of course she got this on a Friday night, so no access to doc, tests or meds until Monday, and even then she needed the Lorazepam almost the whole week of treatment to keep her calm later in the day... we have it on hand, just in case. She does not get that every day.
Thank you for your response. I'm glad to hear its "normal". These actions are like 3 days old, so I didnt know if it's ok. I'm only wondering if she is going to get worse? Should I wake her up from it?
Thank you
My MIL told us she wanders sometimes at night and one morning she went into the kitchen and discovered she must have gotten up and eaten. It scared her. She had taken Ambien the night before, so now she doesn't take it anymore. As another poster said, people have sleep walked on Ambien and never knew it. I won't take this, use Melatonin instead if I need.
She has been diagnosed with Lewy Body dementia, which is very sleep disruptive. Here’s some info if you’d like to check against other symptoms: https://www.lbda.org/
So we now have nighttime caregivers to watch. And feel fortunate to have the resources to do that.
Best of luck to you and your mom.
A baby monitor is great to have, I had to get a bed/chair alarm as well. Not only is it certain to wake me, but the sound is enough to startle my mom and stop her in her tracks.
After researching any meds your mom may be on(it's very
rare for there to be any interactions), try GABA
Good luck.
This is all difficult; doing it while sleep deprived, is excruciating.