Sundowners and delusions?

Cara Smith

This is my first post here, and a bit embarrassing and frustrating. My DH has alz, and white matter disease—recently diagnosed. For the past year he has been getting up in the middle of the night claiming I disrupt his sleep by moaning and rolling around. This is NOT happening. I have recorded sleep cycles to show him this is not occurring— there is a sound activated snore app—despite this he refused to believe he is imagining all of this. I might snore occasionally but am not doing any moaning groaning etc. Most of the time I’m awake when he claims this is happening because he is stomping around etc. He was so angry that I recorded and could refute his claims. This is almost becoming a deal breaker in our marriage. He also has most of the other classic symptoms of sundowner and he denies even the slightest possibility and accuses me of lying. What should I do. I feel like I’m going crazy.

M1

Welcome to the forum. Talk to his doctors. If he is on any cholinesterase drugs like Aricept or Namenda, they can cause vivid dreams and sleep disturbances and thus may need to be stopped or changed. Sleep fragmentation and disturbance is also extremely common in dementia, and he may need additional medication for it. My parter (and many others on this forum) has had great results with low dose Seroquel at bedtime.

Most attempts to refute delusions with hard evidence will backfire, as you've seen. It's futile to try to reason with a person with dementia. Best just not to argue with him.

You have come to a good place for advice and support but sorry you find yourself in need of it.

SusanB-dil

Hi Cara - welcome to 'here', but sorry for the reason.

M1 is correct. Just want to double that - not to argue with someone with dementia. You can't reason with one whose reasoning is broken.

No need to feel embarrassed. no-judgements. A lot of us have similar or same situations.

terei

Not getting good sleep could really affect your own health. I would try a couple different things, firstly, dont try to convince him that it isn’t happening. Saying ‘I’m so sorry, the Dr is going to give me something to use to prevent that from happening again’. Would work much better IMO.

Also, is it possible that you could sleep elsewhere? I warn you, this may not help, because he can easily say he can hear you from there. Apologizing + telling him you are taking steps to stop ‘disturbing’ him will go much further. His Dr should also be informed in case it is a side effect of a med. or possibly prescribe something that will help HIM sleep

Iris L.

In addition to the above great advice, please familiarize yourself with anosognosia. He is unaware that he has dementia and whatever delusions or hallucinations he may be experiencing. Learn to use the loving lies as work-arounds as described. Also don't be embarrassed. This is mild compared to other challenges.

Iris