Sundowning

Sundowning, or sundown syndrome, is a pattern seen mainly in people with some form of dementia, marked by increased confusion and restlessness that begins in the late afternoon or early evening. The nurse Lois K. Evans coined the term in 1987, drawing the connection between a person's rising confusion and the setting of the sun. It tends to occur most often during the middle stages of Alzheimer's disease and mixed dementia and to subside as the dementia progresses further, and people experiencing it are generally able to recognize the pattern as abnormal even while it is happening. Sundowning has no official diagnosis of its own in the DSM-5, and reported prevalence among people with Alzheimer's disease varies widely, from roughly 20 to 45 percent of cases.