'Sundowning' affects people with dementia differently: What to do when your loved one is suffering from this phenomenon

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

dementia to become more confused in the late afternoon and into the night. At the outset, I should emphasise the term «sundowning» is overly simplistic, as it's a shorthand term that can encompass a vast number of behaviours in many different contexts. When assessing changed behaviours in dementia, it's always better to hear a full and accurate description of what the person is actually doing at these times, rather than to just accept that «they're sundowning.» This set of behaviours commonly described as «sundowning» often includes (but is not limited to) confusion, anxiety, agitation, pacing and «shadowing» others. It may look different depending on the stage of dementia, the person's personality and past behaviour patterns, and the presence of specific triggers. Why then, do such altered behaviours tend to happen at specific times of the day? And what should you do when it happens to your loved one?

We all interpret the world via the information that enters our brains through our five senses. Chief among these are sight and sound. Imagine the difficulty you'd have if asked to perform a complex task while in a darkened room. People living with dementia are just as dependent on sensory input to make sense of and correctly interpret their environment. As light fades towards the end of the day, so too does the amount of sensory input available to help a dementia patient interpret the world. The impact of this on a brain struggling to integrate sensory information at the best of times can be significant, resulting in increased confusion and unexpected behaviours.

We have all heard it said that we only use a fraction our brain power, and it is true we all have far more brain power than we