Sundowning: A schedule interrupted

Mom goes to bed early.  During the winter months, that is about 4:00 every afternoon.   She becomes very agitated and cannot be deterred.  It is night and she WILL go to bed.  She is too tired to stay up another minute.  The fact that she napped after lunch is forgotten.

 This afternoon agitation and fixation behavior is called "Sundowning" and is common in Alzheimer's patients.

But going to bed so early has its drawbacks, too.  It means I have to wake her up to have dinner.   She isn't happy about it.  Dinner is an interruption to her sleep.

Sometimes, she will eat at 4:00 and then go off to bed.  Mostly, not.  She wants lunch at 1 or 1;30, and 4 is just too soon after lunch (and her afternoon snack) for her to be hungry.  Plus, if she eats at 4, she gets hungry during the night and then she's full of complaints -- we don't let her have any food!!!!!!!!

Of course, she is up again by 11:00 pm, and wanders around the house from then until around 4 in the morning.  After all, she just had many hours of sleep. She isn't tired.

I am.  I don't sleep when she is turning lights on and off, talking, opening and closing doors, and generally disrupting everyone.

Here is her current "schedule" for a typical day:

Up at 9, dress
Breakfast around 9:30
Spends time at the "Portal" catching up on news.
Naps for about an hour
Rearranging closet, drawers, general wandering around
Another 1/2 hour nap
Repeat:  Rearranging and wandering activities
Lunch around 1;30
Naps for about an hour
Has a snack
More "Portal" time - sometimes used for escape planning with her
         imaginary friends
More rearranging stuff OR attempted escape
Getting dark, time for bed by 4:00
Sleep until 6:30
Awakened for dinner
Back to bed until 11:00
Then wandering around, on the Portal, back to rearranging,
            trawling the halls, talking/mumbling, opening/closing
            doors, and going up and down the stairs until  about
            4:00 am
Back to bed until 9.  Start over.

I think she sleeps about 13 hours, maybe more, every day.  There are other little cat-naps along the way.  Part way through lunch; at the Portal; whenever the mood strikes.  Her neurologist says that curtailing daytime sleeping will not help with the nighttime wandering.  Her behavior lets me get about 5 hours of sleep on a good night.  Sometimes, much less.

She won't watch TV (can't follow the plot), can no longer really  read, doesn't want to talk on the phone, has abandoned the crossword puzzles and word-find puzzles she used to enjoy.  She doesn't want to spend much time with live people, she prefers the imaginary world within the "Portal" for all her social interaction.

What she really wants is to have me be available 24/7 to provide anything she wants, including a fresh, hot meal of her choosing at any moment of the night.

I don't think so.