Mom has day/night confusion

christineSR

Hi, my mother w/dementia lives alone. She is mixing up her days and nights. For example, she called 2 am saying she's dressed and ready to go out for doctor appointment. How have you helped your loved one in this situation? She has the large digital clock that has the am/pm day/night displays.

M1

welcome to the forum Christine. I wish I had an answer for you, but I don’t. However, it sounds like this is a wake-up call (no pun intended) that she probably should not be living alone. What’s to stop her from walking out of the door at 2 am to try to get to that appointment? The clocks etc. are of no help because the information doesn’t register in the damaged brain.

Sleep fragmentation and disruption is pretty common and may respond to medication, but again, my major concern would be that she should not be by herself.

Iris L.

M1 is right, her confusion is global. She is not in control of her faculties. She should no longer be living alone. She likely has anosognosia, meaning she is unaware of having dementia or that she is in danger. You cannot convince her of reality, nor reason with her, nor teach her, nor expect her to use clocks or other devices or technology. The only thing to do is to take steps to ensure her safety. This may involve subterfuge. Read about anosognosia and learn the work-arounds that the members use. Read a lot of threads.

Iris

H1235

I agree with the above. If she doesn’t know the difference between day and night then it is time to figure out a different living arrangement for her. I can understand wanting her to stay in her home as long as possible. You don’t want to wait til there is an incident. At that point it may be too late. She decides to fry bacon, forgets about it and burns the house down. Would she know to get out of the house or would she think its not that bad I can put the fire out? The stakes are high here. AL facilities can have a waiting list. Don’t wait!

MN Chickadee

Yup, it's your warning shot off the bow that she can't live alone anymore she needs 24/7 supervision. Confusing days and nights will not be the only issue now, there are severe safety risks now for fires, wandering, being scammed or preyed upon, cooking, finances, all kinds of things. They all come together now in this not so fun phase. Her brain can't register logic so fancy clocks or tech won't help. We used a white board for a while with the date, season/weather, appointments etc and it helped a tiny bit, but only because mom was never alone and we discussed it together constantly. There is no substitute for 24/7 supervision either with family and hired staff in the home or a memory care facility. Once she is settled in a safe environment you could look at meds for the night disruptions. Many PWD benefit from a sleep med. Sometimes the antipsychotics prescribed for agitation have the added benefit of helping sleep, others folks just need something lighter. My mother took Remeron for sleep and it had the added benefit of being somewhat of an anti-depressive to help mood. It made our nights much more manageable.

dancsfo

I agree with all the comments posted already, but I would add that getting a dementia diagnosis from a doctor would help, just to rule some things out, and/or get the dementia stage your mom is at. With that, you can start the process for getting some in-home help, or appropriate placement at a facility, or make plans for other caregivers.

christineSR

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/224047#Comment_224047

thank you for taking time to reply. It’s time for long term care.