Hello all, me again. My 73 year old brother with FTD who lives alone and is in the late stages of this awful condition, is sleeping more and more. He has twice daily home care visits and in between those he falls asleep in the chair and often drops off whilst he’s eating his meals. I ring him daily but this last couple of weeks it’s taken me 3 sometimes 4 attempts to get him to answer his landline. Our conversations are getting shorter and he tells me he is sleeping a lot but finds it hard to wake up. Because his speech is failing him, I’m not sure what he means. When I ask him what he means, he just changes the subject to the weather. In fact the weather, the time of day, and how he keeps sleeping so much is all he seems able to talk about and he gets his words muddled and leaves out verbs. He is no longer aware of what day it is or whether it’s day or night unless he looks at his dementia clock. Anyone else heard of any dementia sufferer saying it’s hard to wake up?
FTD finding it hard to wake up
- Thread starter Brother47
- Start date
My mother didn't say it was hard to wake up but she did have several sleeping phases, sleeping up to 16 hours a day. In my mother's case, I think it was her way of escaping her disease.
Thanks for your reply Canadian Joanne. He’s definitely sleeping a lot more and I think you’re right, it’s an escape route. I can’t help thinking that he may be trying to say something else? He’s at a stage in FTD where he struggles to find the right words and can’t formulate sentences correctly. He leaves out words. . He may be trying to say something else. I’ve read that as the condition progresses, the brain uses up a lot more energy trying to cope with speech and understanding and causes the patient to sleep a lot more.
