Confusing night and day

[sharonbrown]

My mum has semantic dementia and has been going slowly downhill, little by little, but last night/today was a huge step further down. She is completely confused about the time of day - is 12 hours out. Did all the day-time things last night and spent all day trying to undress and go to bed. Wondered why Pointless wasn't on yesterday but obviously tried to watch it at 5.15am!

Has anyone experienced this and if so, do you have any advice. I spent today trying to get mum back into the right routine but is this the right thing to do?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Sharon

 

[fizzie]

i'm guessing there are lots of different opinions on this but we kept my ma on the right clock by doing exactly what you spent today doing!! Bringing her back to 'right' day and night routine. It is jolly hard work - I do feel for you but it worked for Mum. Every so often she had a blip exactly like that - often coincided with clock change time but sometimes it just happened.

Some people find that in the evening keeping the room brightly lit and eliminating shadows helps to keep time until bedtime but I agree it is really hard when it is a 12 hour flip. I didn't find the 'night and day ' clocks much help and the only thing that saved us was a fairly rigid routine with visits and company very frequently keeping up the normal routines

 

[sharonbrown]

Thanks Fizzie. It's good to have someone else's experience and advice. I'm just hoping that tomorrow things will be better but I won't hold my breath.

Her carer has just rung me because mum always rings her at 7.30 every evening and she did that as normal tonight. Mum said she'd had a terrible day 'yesterday'. Hopefully her clock is now reset.

 

[fizzie]

Thanks Fizzie. It's good to have someone else's experience and advice. I'm just hoping that tomorrow things will be better but I won't hold my breath.

Her carer has just rung me because mum always rings her at 7.30 every evening and she did that as normal tonight. Mum said she'd had a terrible day 'yesterday'. Hopefully her clock is now reset.

That is good news and your mum also realising that it wasn't a good day even if she isn't quite sure why. Well done you xx Have a good night's sleep tonight