sundowning
sundowning noun: a state of agitation, confusion, or delirium, especially in patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease, which begins each evening and which is alleviated by daylight. Also the present participle and gerund of sundown.
Noun
sundowning (uncountable)
- A state of agitation, confusion, or delirium, especially in patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease, which begins each evening and which is alleviated by daylight.
- Impaired judgment and sundowning (increased confusion when orienting cues diminish at night) often makes it necessary to restrict and protect the delirious patient.1986, Norma Sullivan, Barry Fogel, “Could This Be Delirium?”, in The American Journal of Nursing, volume 86, number 12, page 1363
- Polysomnography and othersleep measures show sleep fragmentation with shortening of N3 sleep togetherwith excessive daytime sleepiness (EDS) and sundowning as the main findings in AD patients.2023 April, Abhijit Satpati, Thomas Neylan, Lea T. Grinberg, “Histaminergic neurotransmission in aging and Alzheimer's disease: A review of therapeutic opportunities and gaps”, in Alzheimer’s &...
- Synonyms:
- nocturnal delirium, sundowner syndrome
Also used as
sundowning is also the present participle and gerund of sundown.
Synonyms of sundowning
Origin of sundowning
From sundown + -ing.
Questions about sundowning
- What does sundowning mean?
- Sundowning means a state of agitation, confusion, or delirium, especially in patients suffering from Alzheimer's disease, which begins each evening and which is alleviated by daylight.
- What part of speech is sundowning?
- Sundowning is a noun.
Words near sundowning in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: sundowning (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “sundowning.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sundowning. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.