an article of Merche CardonaSocial Integrator and Alzheimer’s expert
Surely many of the caregivers of patients with Alzheimer’s who are reading this post, as they progress in their reading, they perfectly identify what we are going to detail. Its about sundowning syndrome or also called Sunset syndrome.
This phenomenon, so called because it occurs when sunset approaches and nightfall, debuts in the patient with exacerbated nervousness with symptoms of anxiety coinciding with the sunset of the day.
Many sick of Alzheimer’s suffer from it and sometimes the caregivers state that they become aggressive and nervous with levels of anxiety well above what they show at other times of the day. To say, as a curiosity, that it also exists in babies, and it is called when it occurs in young people the “sunset syndrome”
How to identify the symptoms caused by this syndrome?
In general, and surely when reading the list of symptoms more than one caregiver will know what we are talking about, the following signs are perceived in the patient:
Agitation, compulsive movements (grasping objects, rubbing surfaces…etc.), repetition of words, phrases, whispers, movements of rubbing hands together or against parts of the body, screaming, crying, more pronounced disorientation than during the day, more emotions accentuated, sadness, anger, frustration, possible attempts at aggression, feeling of having to accomplish a task with references to life (having to go to work, go home, take care of the children… etc.) increased wandering, nervousness, anxiety, feeling of imminent danger, insomnia, fears, more pronounced hallucinations…
Have you identified it? If you are caregivers, surely it is not unknown to you that some patients with Alzheimer’s when sunset arrives, they behave in this way, or have any of the symptoms described above. If so, welcome to Syndrome of the Sunset or Sundowning.
What triggers this common syndrome in patients with Alzheimer’s?
In the first place, one of the most important factors that precipitate this series of symptoms is the alteration of the biological rhythms (either Cardiac rhtyms) of the patient. That is to say, the sleep cycles, which in a person without cognitive alterations, are repeated in a cyclical and natural way governed by our internal biological clock, in a patient with Alzheimer’s they do not have this regularity, so they lack that natural “warning” that our body gives us and that tells us when we should sleep and when to wake up.
One of the factors responsible for the regulation of sleep rhythms in humans is the melatonin. This hormone is secreted by the Pineal glandand it is clearly decreased in patients with Alzheimer’sHence, this is one of the main causes of sunset syndrome.
According to the studies carried out on this syndrome, it is more frequent than we believe in geriatric medicine and especially in patients with Alzheimer’s and other dementias.
About the author: Merche Cardona
Merche Cardona is Social Integrator expert in Alzheimer’s, teacher and collaborator of Supercuidadores and the University of Salamanca.
«During all the time that I have spent dealing with Alzheimer’s patients directly, I have detected that the lack of information and therefore, of expectations is one of the Achilles heels of the situation that people who are related to close with this disease, such as the caregivers or relatives of the patient.
For this expert, the main caregiver of an Alzheimer’s patient faces new situations for which no one has prepared him. “Inexperience together with the lack of training and information are a very negative tandem when it comes to dealing with the disease”.
She is the author of the blog.