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A Journey into forgetfulness

A Journey into forgetfulness

Have you ever had an experience where you knew …

The name of the person, it was on the tip of your tongue as they say, but ….it just eludes you, just stays slightly beyond your grasp.

Or you just had those car keys, sun glasses, …. but now what did you do with them? Where did you put them?

Now imagine …. that is your life. 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, that is your life.

You just can’t quite recall. It is something you should know but. …. It eludes you.

And day by day, week by week the things that slip just into the shadows of your mind where you can sort of glimpse them but can’t quite make out what they are grow and grow and slip further and farther away.

Alzheimer’s

This is what this blog is about. A Journey into forgetfulness. With this blog I will discuss our own experiences with Alzheimer's disease in the hopes it will help others with family or friends with this illness

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Sleep issues - Melatonin can help

It has been awhile since I posted anything here on my blog about Living with Alzheimer's.

One issue that has arisen with my father is his problems with sleep. He would want to go to bed at 7 PM (or whatever time) and we'd tel him it was too early. But once you told him he could go to bed, he wouldn't. Suddenly everything became a crisis. He would worry about who would wake him up, what he would do the next day, where would he eat breakfast, how he would pay for breakfast, what if someone else wanted the bed he was sleeping in, ....

Remember Alzheimer's victims will be confused. That will not also know where they are or what is happening around them.

But inevitably it would take 2 or 3 hours to get him asleep once it was actually a time it was OK for him to sleep or perhaps he would be up most of the night.

A solution we discovered was Melatonin. It is a natural substance that is used a lot for people who suffer from jet lag traveling. It is why I had some on hand. I bought it years ago while traveling primarily to have on hand for others in my group. We had traveled to Brasil. Anyway it helps naturally to encourage sleep. And it seems to work well with my father. Normally if we give it to him just before he goes to bed, he is asleep within 30 minutes and sleeps until morning.

If your Alzheimer's victim is having trouble going to sleep or sleeping through the night, ask his doctor about giving him a 3 mg Melatonin tablet at bedtime. It has worked for us!