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Is this the start of sun downing?

NAS82546

My grandpa has had a few behaviors change since the time change and we're unsure if it's sundowning or just struggling to get used to the time change?

My grandpa's prior night routine: meds at 8:30, get ready for bed, and in bed by 9:30. Sometimes with movies or sports it would get pushed to 10:30, but it was pretty rare. This was also all done by him without my mom or I prompting him.

Now, he's trying to go to bed at 7 without taking his meds and after being told he needs to stay up a bit longer but can go to bed after his meds he's staying up until 11:30 or 12 watching TV. Staying up that late is causing him to be more tired, irritable, and confused during the day, as well as greatly impacting his mobility from how tired he is. Another incident is that he fell asleep in his recliner around 8:30 pm, woke up around 9:30 pm, and began acting as if it was morning. Despite my mom showing him the time and him realizing it was dark out, his responses were "wow I slept in really late" and "it's still really dark for this time of morning." It took a bit to convince him it really was nighttime and he needed to go to bed. We've had a few instances of him thinking it's morning when it's night, but it was earlier in the year during spring and hasn't happened for a while. Additionally, he woke up this morning convinced he heard an alarm, and it caused him to be very confused, obsessive, and disorientated throughout his morning. As far as we can tell, there's no alarm that he could've heard in his room. We're unsure if this could've been an auditory hallucination, as he has had a few hallucinations before.

Thankfully we haven't experienced too many issues with sundowning, but as he's had an intense decline over the last few months combined with these changes, we were wondering if we needed to prepare ourselves for it?

Also a quick note, we'd be fine with him staying up however long he wants but Mon-Fri he's up around 5 am with my mom as she gets ready for work, and despite numerous conversations telling him he doesn't need to and can sleep in, he won't.

  • It does seem much later than it is because of the darkness, which might be why he seems confused about what time it is. If he’s tired at 7 could you not give him his meds early and let him sleep if he wants to? My Grandad only used to sleep 4-5 hours a night he’d just sit in his recliner watching the sports channel when he was awake, your Grandpa might not need as much sleep as you think now. I’m also a bit confused at the insistence of what time a grown adult should be sleeping is there more information you’ve not given like medical issues or dementia?