My mom is now 5 years into her dementia. She use to sleep very soundly, but within the past 3 months her sleep patterns have changed substantially. Her doctors agreed to increase Remeron at night for her anxiety/depression. However Remeron has had the opposite affect. She would get very mean, and was wide awake for 24 hours and then crash. I discontinued the Remeron at nighttime. She also takes Aricept and Cymbalta. She talks non-stop with the repeats and talks alot about her life as a child and more into the dark side (death). I am open for any suggestions. I must confess the constant talking really effects me more than it does her (maybe, not sure).
She refuses to eat, says her stomach is constantly hurting and the minute she puts food in her mouth she starts complaining about pain. We've found that she developed ulcers which is part of the culprit. We give her an Ensure at each meal time so she is getting the nutrition she needs.
The only other thing that is troublesome is night wandering. Sometime she gets up when we are sleeping and walks outside looking for a dog she doesn't have. We ended up going to the hardware store and found an alarm system that chimes when the opened. This alerts us to any problems we might have and we're able to stop her before she damages herself.
Hope some of this is helpful to you.
It may take an hour or more to awake my wife for food and toileting, unless I play some vintage sing along songs. Those awake her quite quickly, but she tires of them after an hour or so. In summary, coconut butter, vintage music, and tender love, are the only things that have helped in my wife's case.