Late stage dementia and NOT sleeping a lot

Marie58

I often hear of LOs with dementia sleeping a lot. My DH is late stage 7 and doesn't sleep much and doesn't seem to have deep sleep. He's in MC so it's hard to know for sure, but I've talked to several staff members of all the shifts. They even did a sleep log for two weeks where they checked him every hour 24/7. The only stretch of sleeping continuously was for a few hours starting around 4 or 5 AM some days. I'm there about 4 hours per day now due to his decline (bedbound, not able to feed himself). What I see is cat naps here and there and not deep sleep. 

Has anyone else experienced this, especially in the late stage? Thanks and blessings to everyone.

M1

Marie, my stage 5 partner had terrible sleep fragmentation, restless, up all night, couldn't sleep for more than an hour or two at a stretch.  Her PCP put her on 12.5 mg of Seroquel at bedtime and it worked like a charm, increased to 25 mg about six months ago and it's worked great with no side effects, has also decreased anger outbursts.  Worth asking about.  It's a definite neurologic damage to the reticular activating system (which controls sleep/wake cycles) and probably will only respond to medication, not something you can behaviorally influence.

Marie58

Thanks M1. DH started seroquel in November. Maybe we need to adjust the dose??

M1

YYes I would ask about increasing the bedtime dose.