Sundowners and Alzheimer’s Understanding The Signs

The time is 5.00 p.m. suddenly your serene, calm mother is now very angry, agitated, and even combative. You are nervous and maybe even frightened, and it seems everything you do does not help. It seems as if there is nothing you can do. Take heart; you're not alone, and there is help.

What your loved one with Alzheimer’s is experiencing is called Sundowners. It is very common for those with Alzheimer’s disease to become increasingly agitated as daylight fades away into night. Why the agitation?
Let’s use you as an example. Say you have a child in school, and everyday, you pick her up from school at 3:30 p.m. You’ve been picking her up since kindergarten, and now she is in the eighth grade. So all in all, you’ve picked her up for the better part of nine years. Imagine what it feels like to have something important to do, but you couldn’t remember what it was? What is you became more agitated the later it got, and you feel a strong urge to do something? And that's just after a nine-year habit.

Thinking about your mother. For years and years, your mom took care of the house and your dad went to work. It was time to begin preparing for dinner, it was almost sundown. Taking care of husband and children was her job. This was who she use to be. With each passing day,more and more of her memory is wiped away, and now all these years later, she has Alzheimer’s disease. Now sundown comes, and she knows she should be doing something, but what is it? That is the reason it is called Sundowners Syndrome. What could you do about it? This is how you can help?

Actually there are several things that you can do. And things you can try. This is a list of the things that have been successful for others.

1. Before darkness approaches, make sure the house is well lit. The brightness inside, reduces the feeling of time passing.
2. A solution is to purchase bright colored mini blinds. This also gives the illusion of daylight.
3. Think of what your loved one used to do at the time she begins to get anxious. Was it cook? To give her something to do take her into the kitchen. Who really knows? It just might help to calm her down.
4. As the afternoon progresses less exciting activities are calming.
The beginning of the solution is knowing what has happening to your loved one.

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