Sleep Disturbances in Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers.
May 7, 2008 by Liz Lewis
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
A new study has found that “…sleep disturbances among Alzheimer patients vary significantly from those of their family caregivers, and that, surprisingly, poor sleep in either the patient or caregiver is not necessarily linked to disturbed sleep in the other. “
The study looked at sleep-wake activity of the Alzheimer’s patients and their caregivers over a week. The results found that the “… greatest stability for patients was observed for the time of night when they went to bed. For caregivers, the greatest stability was total wake time at night. The least stable patient sleep variable was total hours of sleep per night. Time in bed was the least stable variance for caregivers.”
You can read the full report here…
An uninterrupted night’s sleep was something I received little of when I cared for Mother. She lost track of day or night, cat napped during the day, so was awake or only napping at night. Her sleep patterns (or non-patterns), always irratic before Ahzheimer’s, became more so after she developed this disease.