Excessive Sleeping

[Guest guest]

I know everyone who's loved one with dementia probably goes through this point,

but my Mom, who has dementia(not confirmed LBD but I suspect it is) is sleeping

pretty much all day into the early evening. Sometimes she doesn't get out of bed

until 10:30 in the morning. It takes her an hour or so to eat breakfast, then

she is washed up and dressed by her aide, then she sits in her recliner chair in

the den and sleeps there. She is woken up for lunch, again takes a while to

eat(either soup or egg salad sandwich) goes back to sleep after lunch until

dinner, then after dinner goes back sleep or just has eyes closed...she gets her

pajamas on after dinner, but then the last couple of weeks she is more alert in

the later evening, she can now stay up until 10 or 11 pm. My dad says she is

awake, I don't know just how awake she is, but I guess she opens her eyes more

in the late evening..during the day she is either sound asleep or eyes closed

and out of it. When I come in during the day, she barely even says hello. Or

its just hello and back to sleep. No talking. Even in the evening she is barely

talking. She watches only one show, Army Wives. Its really the only things she

will attempt to see, and she's seen them all over and over and over again.

The Dr does not want to mess with her medication dosages because every time that

happens she takes a turn for the far worse. She can become delusional and

hallucinates, becomes OCD etc. But there is just no way to wake her up...no

matter how much you ask her to stay awake she just can't. What has anyone

experienced with this kind of situation?

I have suggested to my Dad that now is the time he will need 24/7 care for her,

the aide leaves before she goes to bed because she has been there so long...my

dad feels bad and lets her go home, but then he has to handle the bedtime

routine alone and it is getting difficult for him to handle. He is exhausted.

Then he needs to get up early to do his own activities and let the aides in.

I would welcome any advice. Does this sound like end stage symptom? She is also

totally incotinent. She only wakes up for meals because she is made to. I don't

think she has an interest in eating.