Early in the blogs I was screaming out about his evening behaviors

We thought it was anxiety and/or sundowners

The behaviors keep me on edge, raise my stress levels, cause us to have unpleasent exchanges

So our prior doc thought it was Sundowner’s syndrome and prescribed an anti-anxiety med which he felt would not interfere with the other therapeutic RX’s

He has been taking it for about a month now, no observable change

The new doc had a different take, his first priority was schedule management

Seems the body’s natural rhythms are super important to respect for someone with this disease

Sleeping schedule, pooping regularity, are things we need to pay better attention to

This is going to be hard for me,

I love my current, semi-retired time fluidity

It also means travel, with time zone changes, are going to wreck havoc on him

We have definitely seen that be the case (recall Lewy Lean)

So we need to have a daily routine, a regular time to wake up, eat, go to bed

Probably not terribly different than parenting young children

We are trying to cure what seems to be an evening agitation

The doc seems to think this might also be Environmental Dependency Syndrome (Zelig syndrome):

Environmental dependency syndrome is a condition where individuals rely heavily on environmental cues to quide their behavior and complete tasks.

Damage to the frontal lobe, which is responsible for executive functions and decision making, is often implicated in this syndrome

A specific manifestation of environmental dependency where individuals feel compelled to grasp and use objects they see, even if inappropriate or unnecessary

Such a guessing game all the time

I do know that he wanders around quite a bit, has moved chairs from here to there, put things that didn’t need to go in the trash in the trash…..

Continual need to move around, unable to sit still

He also prescribed a new RX which we need to try to help reduce this

The other thing he said that is common is “shadowing”

Shadowing is when he follows vs walking along side

He does that ALOT and its been driving me crazy

I have always wondered why he doesn’t walk along side of me

I will stop, reach for his hand, so that we can walk side by side

Now I know…..he is following me, someone he is comfortable with, in order to navigate his environment

I don’t know that changes much…..but certainly explains things