Saturday, August 23, 2008

Alzheimer's, dementia and other caregivers, can enjoy better sleep

As stated in the last post, nighttime can be nightmarish for those who live with someone in the moderate-to-advanced stages of Alzheimer's or other dementias. The sleep patterns of caregivers over age 60 who provide direct, live-in care for people with dementia are significantly worse than those of noncaregivers, says a study in the new Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine. These caregivers:

Get less total sleep (an average of 6.5 hours per night)
Take longer to fall asleep

What can caregivers do to improve their sleep?

Practice good sleep habits
click here to see what they are

Minimize the sundowning and wandering of the Alzheimer's or dementia person
click here for some tips

Think about night time respite care
read about it here

Get a depression evaluation
Here is some
valuable info


Join a support group
information
Alzheimers Association recommendations

Join an online support group
click here to join

More information on being a well caregiver
click here

1 comment:

Unknown said...

This is very informative post I like it. Person suffering from Alzheimer's disease is not so simple handle with. It requires a highly trained person to deal with as most of the time its not easy to take care of these patients. One can may find solution of this problem by hiring some kind of In Home Care services. Today there are so many organization who deal with this problem in highly professional way.

Dementia specialist