My grandmother has middle stage dementia and with her behaviors, it takes 2-3 of us at a time to handle her at once. Her biggest issues are control (she used to be high up and in charge at work and is used to running everyone's business), anger and aggression (that has worsened since my grandpa died, she doesn't remember and we keep making up stories because the telling her the first time sent her to the hospital. She perseverates on his whereabouts, and packing to "go home"), and SLEEP. She is up 36-48 hours straight despite medications, and sleeps maybe 6-9 hours on the days she does finally go to sleep! Her primary prescribed lorazepam for anxiety and trazadone with melatonin for sleep. It didn't really work. Her geriatric psychiatrist discontinued the trazadone claiming it would confuse her more and put her on the anti-psychotic seroquel and has been playing with the doses from 25mg twice a day, to 50mg twice a day, to 75mg twice a day, to now 50mg three times a day. Her primary increased the trazadone for sleep from 25 mg to 50 mg a day. None of it works! We hear the exhaustion in her voice, the slurring of her speech that indicates her body is ready to rest, but her mind just keeps on going like an energizer bunny. I never wanted her on any psychiatric meds as I know the dangers of them, but we are all so exhausted and we're worried that she's going to give herself a stroke or heart attack since she already has a weak ticking time bomb for a heart, that her cardiologist told us she's at risk for a sudden acute major heart attack since she refuses surgery. We just don't know what to do anymore and the doctors don't seem to either. Any suggestions on what worked for your loved ones would be appreciated. Something's got to give.
When they get this tired, they also become a fall hazard, not to mention you become a zombie.
Benadryl works for me but not for my mother. Melatonin works for me, barely touches her when she's in pace mode.
I wish I had a positive answer for you, however, I am still looking myself!