Dementia Man: Three-month Review (Part 5)

Sleeping

Originally Mr. Q was getting up and wandering around during the nite. That did not last long and he settled down to sleeping all night save getting up once or twice during the night to go to the bathroom.

He did wake up early about six am or near that time however. That has not changed. However now he has a difficult time staying in bed.

Just tonight I put him in bed shortly after 8:30 pm. He got up twenty minutes later and went to the bathroom to spit although he had fallen asleep. I put him back to bed. I went into my room and later went to check on him and found him on his knees and hands in the bed.

He seemed asleep. To make a long story short I had to put him back to bed several more times tonight. Recently several or more times he has gotten up many times at night before he finally goes to sleep at 11 pm or 12 midnight.

If night is a problem and it often is with him not going to sleep for a couple or three hours or more then nap time is worse, sometimes far worse. He always wants to go to bed (although that appears to be less and less compared to before).

However, when nap time comes it is difficult to get him in bed or to go to bed. He seems totally lost frequently when nap time comes. No matter what we say or do he will not appear to recognize that he is to take a nap or go to sleep. This is almost exactly the opposite of before.

I just walked into Mr. Q’s room to find him crouched vertically in the bed and awake and “out of it”. He has been in bed about six hours, but probably at least an hour or two awake.

Barging into the occupied bathroom

This still occurs, but not as frequently as before. Where before it would happen many times a day, now it appears to be far less. Don’t get me wrong. It still happens, but less, partly because he is spitting less than before. Often when he went into the bathroom when it was occupied or the person was trying to get out he was going there to spit in the sink.

Wandering

This is hard to tell, but it seems like it is less than before. Part of the reason is the extremely long time he has to stay in the bathroom to do his poo poo on a near regular basis where before he would be wandering those times.

He does seem to be pacing outside on the patio less than before. Before he might spend an hour twice a day pacing back and forth on the patio it does not appear to be nearly as frequent. Wandering inside the house has not changed much although it might be a little less. I am spending a lot of time watching him and that usually prevents most wandering compared to if I am not watching him.

Medicines

We have tried several different medicines for Mr. Q according to doctor’s orders. All have had some affect on him from ok to bad. It is still a “let’s see how this works” scenario. I was told he had a medicine for his wandering. Later I found out there is no such thing.

He has had an infection twice and those medicines for that seem to affect his mood and eating. Mr. Q does not do as we ask most of the time and that causes problems, some of which can directly lead to infections.

We have had to try different sleeping pills and each one caused some other problems to occur. I think he is taking stronger dementia medicines than before and possibly that could have something to do with him seeming “out of it” more than before.

Comments

Mr. Q seems to be getting slightly worse overall. He seems more confused, more often than before. He appears to be wandering somewhat less. His eating habits have changed for the worse, so far. He is generally incontinent now where that was not the case before.

Before he only had a problem doing his bowel movement and that was because he did not drink enough water (none) and did not sit on the stool long enough. Now he does wet his clothes and do poo poo in his clothes or takes off his pants and underwear and does it on the floor.

He is seldom following our suggestions or what we ask or tell him to do. He almost never follows what the caretaker asks him to do. Where before he would usually do as I ask, now most of the time he will ignore me too, when I ask him to do something.