Satin Pajamas or Satin Sheets for Parkinson's? Not Both

Halfway through rolling over, you stall, and your pajamas are part of the reason. Cotton holds on to cotton: they drag on the sheet, which you never notice until Parkinson's has made turning over a slow push. On the Parkinson's forums, the answer is to make one of those two surfaces slippery: satin sheets, or a pair of satin pajamas.

The charity Parkinson's UK lists both on its bedroom equipment page, with the one rule attached.

If turning over has become a struggle with Parkinson's, or you're buying for someone whose nights go like that, the rest of this article is which one to buy, and how to keep the slide short of the floor.

Does satin help with turning over in bed?

For a lot of people, yes. The charity's page says plainly that satin sheets can help you turn over in bed.

On its forum, one member's answer to a thread about not being able to turn in bed is satin sheets, every time. Another got theirs through occupational health:

Occupational health provided me the metal bed bar and satin sheets which were a revolution for me!
PoetryK, on the Parkinson's UK forum

In r/Parkinsons, someone who switched to satin sheets finds them very helpful, in a thread started for a dad who can't turn under a blanket. A member of the UK forum who bought the charity's own sheets says they certainly help with turning over.

It doesn't work for everyone, though. Someone on the same forum got sheets through an occupational therapist, with only a narrow slippery strip, and finds it still a struggle to move in bed. Satin changes the friction and nothing else.

The one rule: sheets or pajamas, never both

The slide that helps you turn is the same slide that takes you over the edge. The charity's page says satin pajamas may help too, but never on satin sheets: together, in its words, they can cause you to slide out of bed too quickly.

On Reddit, someone was asking how a friend in his eighties, living alone, could get himself to the edge of the bed. The friend had already tried the obvious thing:

He tried satin sheets but they were TOO slippery and he almost fell out of bed.
The person who started the thread, in r/Parkinsons

The reply to that post turned the choice round: skip the sheets and try satin pajama shorts instead, so bare legs on a cotton sheet keep some grip. The person asking went looking and found a pair with an elastic waist and no buttons.

Digby, in the same striped pajamas, lies on his side on a glossy raspberry satin sheet with his feet on a band of plain grey cotton at the foot of the bed. He looks easy and content, and a folded satin pajama set sits on a chair at the edge of the frame.

Sheets or pajamas: which one to buy?

Nearly everyone who reports turning over more easily is on sheets. The exception is a carer on the UK forum who says a bar by the bed and some satiny pyjamas helped their husband turn. The pajamas are the charity's "may also help", and one wearer says satin shorts help with getting in and out of bed. A 2014 thread on the UK forum adds the half-and-half version: a silk top with ordinary bottoms.

The sheets have the longer record. A satin set like the Vonty sheet set comes as a fitted sheet, a flat sheet and two pillowcases. Use the flat one, and keep the fitted sheet cotton for grip (more below).

If it's going to be pajamas, go partial, the way the people who wear them do. A short-sleeve set with shorts like Tony and Candice's leaves bare arms and legs on the cotton.

A long-sleeve, long-pants set like SWOMOG's is as much slide as you can wear, so it's the one that most needs a cotton bed under it. Both are men's sets, and the women's versions are a search away.

Keep some grip on the bed

Whichever you buy, the slide needs a brake. Every fix the charity and the forums give is the same idea: satin under the parts of you that turn, and something to push against where your hands and feet go.

Keep the fitted sheet cotton. A MyParkinsonsTeam member who slipped out of bed on satin now uses just the top sheet, and one forum member calls wholly satin sheets "pretty useless", sliding all over the place.
Leave grip at the foot and the sides. Parkinson's UK says to keep an area of friction at the end or sides of the bed so you can get a hold. The same forum member wants every outside edge in something like towelling, and another points out that your feet slip too on a low-friction sheet, so there's nothing to push off.
Or put the satin only where the hips are. Some people prefer a panel of satin across the middle of the bed, the charity says, and sheets are made that way. The sheets one member bought from the charity's shop have a cotton edging that stops you slipping when you sit on the bed.
Add a rail. Two people in these threads pair their sheets with a bed rail beside the mattress, which helps with getting out of bed.
Satin, not "satin stripe". One member warns that "satin stripe" in a listing title may not mean the sheet is satin at all.

Digby asleep on his side in the lamplit bedroom, the amber quilt neat over him and a raspberry satin sheet turned down along its top edge, a small smile on his face.

The first week

Start with the sheets, and only the flat one, over the cotton fitted sheet that's already on the bed. The old cotton pajamas stay on. A week of nights tells you whether the slide is enough. The shorts set is the pajama route to the same slide, over cotton sheets and never the satin ones.