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- Member
Thu Jun 09, 2011 10:25 am
Had another bad night with Mum, she really is getting more difficult to handle in the evenings. She can be relatively good during the day but it all starts to kick off about 5pm and goes downhill from there. Had another one of those quiet Q&A sessions during the afternoon along the lines of:
"Is this my home ?"
“Yes Mum”
"Are my sisters all dead ?"
“Sadly, yes Mum”
"What's wrong with me ?"
“Your memory is failing”
"Is there a cure ?”
“Unfortunately not yet”
"Am I a nuisance ?"
“No Mum”
“Am I in a home ?”
“No Mum, you are in your own home”
“Do I live alone ?”
“No Mum, I live with you now”
“Are you my sister ?”
“No Mum I’m your daughter”
And round and round, same questions, same answers for the best part of 2 hours.
But then closer to bedtime the whole tenor of the questions changes and becomes very paranoid and aggressive. Along the lines of we're keeping things from her and trying to make her believe she is going mad
If I can’t change the subject and get her onto safer ground then I try to answer the questions truthfully, but gently and in a non-contradictory way; I’ve found that if I contradict her outright then the results can be quite explosive:
“This is not my home”
“Yes, it is Mum - you’ve lived here a long time”
That doesn’t work but asking her to tell me her address and/or getting her to recognise her own belongings around her can work.
I think that this ’sundowning’ is one of the worst aspects of Alzheimer’s - by it’s very nature it kicks off late in the day just at the time when I’m beginning to get tired and therefore more likely to snap - I’m not a ’late bird’, much prefer to be in my bed by 1030 or so but I’m having to cope with being up till midnight or later and then still getting my sleep disturbed when she wakes (averagely) at 3am and starts wandering around the flat in a panic not recognising where she is (last night she was at the cinema and couldn’t find her way out !!).
I am really loathe to go down the route of feeding her sleeping tablets or any other medication that would ’quieten’ her down but I’m not sure how much longer I can cope with the endless rounds of repetitive questioning and lack of sleep.
Has anyone got any ideas - PLEASE
"Is this my home ?"
“Yes Mum”
"Are my sisters all dead ?"
“Sadly, yes Mum”
"What's wrong with me ?"
“Your memory is failing”
"Is there a cure ?”
“Unfortunately not yet”
"Am I a nuisance ?"
“No Mum”
“Am I in a home ?”
“No Mum, you are in your own home”
“Do I live alone ?”
“No Mum, I live with you now”
“Are you my sister ?”
“No Mum I’m your daughter”
And round and round, same questions, same answers for the best part of 2 hours.
But then closer to bedtime the whole tenor of the questions changes and becomes very paranoid and aggressive. Along the lines of we're keeping things from her and trying to make her believe she is going mad
If I can’t change the subject and get her onto safer ground then I try to answer the questions truthfully, but gently and in a non-contradictory way; I’ve found that if I contradict her outright then the results can be quite explosive:
“This is not my home”
“Yes, it is Mum - you’ve lived here a long time”
That doesn’t work but asking her to tell me her address and/or getting her to recognise her own belongings around her can work.
I think that this ’sundowning’ is one of the worst aspects of Alzheimer’s - by it’s very nature it kicks off late in the day just at the time when I’m beginning to get tired and therefore more likely to snap - I’m not a ’late bird’, much prefer to be in my bed by 1030 or so but I’m having to cope with being up till midnight or later and then still getting my sleep disturbed when she wakes (averagely) at 3am and starts wandering around the flat in a panic not recognising where she is (last night she was at the cinema and couldn’t find her way out !!).
I am really loathe to go down the route of feeding her sleeping tablets or any other medication that would ’quieten’ her down but I’m not sure how much longer I can cope with the endless rounds of repetitive questioning and lack of sleep.
Has anyone got any ideas - PLEASE
