If your elderly family member isn’t sleeping, she might be dealing with more than just fatigue. It can be more difficult to keep chronic health issues under control and she might find that her emotional health suffers, too.
What Causes Sleep Issues for Seniors?
Your elderly family member’s sleep habits might be different now as she’s growing older than they were even a couple of years ago. She may experience more pain now, which can cause her to have trouble sleeping. Her circadian rhythms might be off, causing her to be sleepy during the day and wide awake at night. There may even be multiple issues plaguing your senior.
You Might Both Be Affected
It’s bad enough that your senior isn’t sleeping well, but it’s also possible that your sleep is interrupted as a result. This could be true even if you and your senior don’t live in the same home. Very often older adults get concerned or lonely in the middle of the night and reach out to family members. That can mean you’ve got a lot of sleep deprivation, too.
Talk to Your Senior’s Medical Provider
The first thing to do is to talk with your senior’s doctor about what’s happening. Make sure that you include all of your senior’s symptoms. It also helps if your elderly family member keeps a sleep log for a week or two in order to collect as much data as possible. If she’s willing to wear an activity tracker that also logs sleep, that can be helpful.
Tweak Some of the Things She’s Doing
Take a look also at other things your senior is doing. Is she drinking caffeinated beverages later in the day? That can cause problems with sleep, even if your senior hasn’t been sensitive to caffeine in the past. If your elderly family member finds that she’s waking up often in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, then maybe she needs to drink plenty of water earlier in the day.
Get Some Overnight Help
Something else that can help is to bring in overnight assistance. Senior care providers can be there for your senior when she wakes up or when she has trouble sleeping. They can keep her company and they can also assist with anything that might be impeding your senior’s ability to get to sleep. This solution can help you to catch up on your sleep, too.
Sleep is incredibly important for health and well-being, so it’s crucial to figure out what’s keeping your senior awake.
