Treatment
- If possible, a consistent sleeping schedule and daily routine that a sufferer is comfortable with can reduce confusion and agitation.
- If the patient's condition permits, having increased daily activity incorporated into their schedule can help promote an earlier bed time and need for sleep.
- Check for over-napping. Patients may wish to take naps during the day, but unintentionally getting too much sleep will affect nighttime sleep. Physical activity is a great treatment for Alzheimer's, and a natural way to encourage night sleep.
- Caffeine is a great (and fast-working) brain stimulant, but try limiting it at night if a night's sleep is needed.
- Caregivers could try letting patients choose their own sleeping arrangements each night, wherever they feel most comfortable sleeping, as well as allow for a dim light to occupy room to alleviate confusion associated with an unfamiliar place.
- Some evidence supports the use of melatonin to induce sleep.
Read more about this topic: Sundowning (dementia)
Famous quotes containing the word treatment:
“Ambivalence reaches the level of schizophrenia in our treatment of violence among the young. Parents do not encourage violence, but neither do they take up arms against the industries which encourage it. Parents hide their eyes from the books and comics, slasher films, videos and lyrics which form the texture of an adolescent culture. While all successful societies have inhibited instinct, ours encourages it. Or at least we profess ourselves powerless to interfere with it.”
—C. John Sommerville (20th century)
“Judge Ginsburg’s selection should be a model—chosen on merit and not ideology, despite some naysaying, with little advance publicity. Her treatment could begin to overturn a terrible precedent: that is, that the most terrifying sentence among the accomplished in America has become, “Honey—the White House is on the phone.””
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
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—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)