How Do You Minimize Sundowning in Dementia Patients?

People with dementia are some of the most numerous clients of home care services in Colorado. When you’re providing care for these individuals, you must learn about any attendant issues to the disease as much as you can. One of these conditions, for instance, is Sundowner’s disease.

Also known as sundowning, this condition manifests itself as confusion in the patient in the hours before sunset. This confusion, unfortunately leads to stress in the patient who tend to deal with their anxiety through aggressive behavior.

Sundowning causes a lot of stress to the family and the primary caregiver as well. Fortunately, there are ways you can minimize the onset of this behavioral concern. Bear these personal care tips in mind to avoid sundowning in your patient as much as possible:

• Create a schedule of activities for yourself and your charge.
  Make sure to stick to it as much as possible. Consistency makes the patient comfortable. This also presents an opportunity to structure activities to make them too tired in the afternoon to sundown.
• Install additional lights that you can turn on at dusk.
  This will help the patient adjust gradually to sunset and prevent confusion at the sudden change in ambiance.
• Make your communications clear.
  Dementia patients have limited cognitive abilities. As such, any complexity in your instructions or their activities at sunset will just trigger sundowning symptoms.

With these tips, we hope you’ll be able to minimize the onset of sundowners’ syndrome in your patient.

For more questions about home health care in Aurora, Colorado, make sure to call us at Arise Home Health Care Inc.