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Suggestions | Help with Getting Her to Sleep

Caregivers: Dementia | Last Active: Apr 30 3:14pm | Replies (16)
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@raebaby

My husband with Parkinson's dementia was sundowning. He would get up in the middle of the night and go outside on our 23 acre property. Once I found him face down in the dirt and he had to go to the emergency room with hypothermia. I started giving him 10 mg of melatonin at 4 pm and another 10 mg at 9 pm. The sun downing stopped and he never did it again until one time when my son forgot to give him the first dose until 6 pm. Melatonin comes in quick dissolving, fast acting tablets that taste ok. You could try saying it's candy. Anything is better than trying to take care of a raging/roaming partner with dementia.

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Replies to "My husband with Parkinson's dementia was sundowning. He would get up in the middle of the..."
lkelley8 | @lkelley8 | Apr 29 10:01pm

@raebaby thank you. What brand of tablets do you use?

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Teri | @tsc | Apr 30 1:57pm

Hi @raebaby, I think you posted about this before, and I keep the info you provided about melatonin in mind for when I will need it.
I have some questions, and I hope you don't mind.
When he takes the first dose of melatonin at 4 pm, what time does he go to bed and fall asleep?
Is he able to go to the bathroom at night or does the melatonin knock him out completely?
Is your husband alert during the day or does he spend most of the time sleeping? My husband doesn't sundown, but he does get up during the night to use the bathroom and to prowl for food. Since he needed a couple of surgeries and also was prediabetic recently, I've taken to locking the fridge at night so he can't snack. He's accepted it okay, though, without fail, at 6 am he wakes me up to open the fridge.
My husband is fixated on eating. I pushed our dinner time back an hour, making his bedtime about 8pm, hoping it would make him more tired and less prone to getting up.
So far, I just give him 5 mg of melatonin to calm him as without it, he talks a lot in his sleep. It's amazing his sleep talk is clear, and he sounds like he did when he was in his 40s (he's 81 now).
I subscribe to Consumers Lab, an independent organization that tests supplements and other foods for their contents and contaminants. It's well worth it. Not all brands of melatonin contain what they claim to have.
Thank you for your posts!

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