Daytime dreams(1)

rannswann

My DW is 65 and was diagnosed with EOD 4 years ago. So far, her decline has (thankfully) moved very slowly. I retired early to get the most out of what we have left. All is ok in the grand scheme of things and I try to concentrate on each day as a gift and not dwell on what we've lost. One fairly new behavior is that she will drift off into a sort of waking dream-state where her eyes are lidded or closed and she begins to pantomime hand and arm movements - like bringing her hands to her mouth and opening it, like she's eating or drinking. Or knitting or writing...things like that. Sometimes it's accompanied with mumbled dialogue. It comes and goes all day, and just as she falls asleep too. If I interrupt her, she "comes to" and usually passes it off as mind wandering.

Does anyone else have experiences like this? I'm worried that it might be a "step down" and a movement into a more severe stage of the disease. Any thoughts?

LA Kitty

My DH does this usually in the early morning and it's related to medication that he's taking.   He sometimes walks around the house with his eyes closed and he calls for me.  Mention this to her doctor who might have an explanation for you.

rannswann

Good advice. I hadn't thought of that since her meds haven't changed in a long while. But, as we all know, things change on a dime!

Thanks!

aod326

DISCLAIMER!! I am not a doctor, so I'm only talking from personal experience. I have Temporal Lobe Epilepsy (TLE), as did DH, starting a couple of years before dementia set in. "Absences", accompanied by repetitive motions, can be an indication of TLE. It's often well-controlled with meds.  Even a team of leading neurologists at a teaching hospital couldn't make a connection between the TLE beginning, followed by Alzheimer's, but maybe it's a similar thing? His TLE began when he was 55.

Good luck.