How Does Dementia Affect Sleep?
As dementia gets more severe, it is common to observe excessive sleeping in dementia patients. Usually, this occurs in the later more advanced stages of dementia.
Before the excessive sleepiness appears, patients with dementia may experience other sleeping disturbances. This is common across all types of dementia including Alzheimer’s disease, sporadic frontotemporal dementia, familial frontotemporal dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies and vascular dementia [1].
It is therefore recommended to seek help in non-pharmacological interventions such as sleep counseling, sleep hygiene regulation and relaxation techniques. The reason why is because patients with dementia usually take pharmacological treatment which might interfere with the effects of sleeping drugs [2].