Father w/Alzheimer's & Driving

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You said in your set up that your mom was slow to even raise the diagnosis. Now you are going to let her control the timing of taking him off the road?

Call the Dr or DMV this week! You have some responsibility here, as the healthy person who has recognized this danger to others.

Yes- I realize I have some responsibility here, otherwise I wouldn't be posting for advice. Thank you for trying to make me out to be an irresponsible ass; that was helpful.

As stated- I don't know my Dad's doctor's name; he just started seeing this particular doctor a couple months ago. I either need to call around the city where the doctor is located to try to see if I can determine where he is a patient (the doctor is located in a city with a population of 300K, so I'm not so sure how hard this will be, nor if any practice can disclose over the phone that my father is a patient), or wait to next month and angle to go to his doctor's appointment with he and my Mom. Contacting the DMV can get his licenses suspended, but that won't do much really if he still has access to his keys. That is the point. All the things you suggested I do accomplish nothing if my Dad still has access to his car keys. I need to convince my Mom to take the keys, and if she won't, then I'm going to have to do it when I'm down there next month.

And yes, my Mom has her head in the sand. They are going out of town this weekend, and my Mom stated, "it will be good to get in the car and get away from all this for a few weeks...". As if by leaving the location they'll be able to escape the Alzheimer's. Especially since travel in the past year -18 months any travel they have done seems to escalate his memory loss.

And yes, my folks are going on a road trip. My Mom's plan is do a majority of the driving, except for the more "rural" parts, which she thinks my Dad should still be able to handle. SMH. I wish I was making this all up. I have offered repeatedly to come with to help out and have been shot down every single time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You said in your set up that your mom was slow to even raise the diagnosis. Now you are going to let her control the timing of taking him off the road?

Call the Dr or DMV this week! You have some responsibility here, as the healthy person who has recognized this danger to others.

Yes- I realize I have some responsibility here, otherwise I wouldn't be posting for advice. Thank you for trying to make me out to be an irresponsible ass; that was helpful.

As stated- I don't know my Dad's doctor's name; he just started seeing this particular doctor a couple months ago. I either need to call around the city where the doctor is located to try to see if I can determine where he is a patient (the doctor is located in a city with a population of 300K, so I'm not so sure how hard this will be, nor if any practice can disclose over the phone that my father is a patient), or wait to next month and angle to go to his doctor's appointment with he and my Mom. Contacting the DMV can get his licenses suspended, but that won't do much really if he still has access to his keys. That is the point. All the things you suggested I do accomplish nothing if my Dad still has access to his car keys. I need to convince my Mom to take the keys, and if she won't, then I'm going to have to do it when I'm down there next month.

And yes, my Mom has her head in the sand. They are going out of town this weekend, and my Mom stated, "it will be good to get in the car and get away from all this for a few weeks...". As if by leaving the location they'll be able to escape the Alzheimer's. Especially since travel in the past year -18 months any travel they have done seems to escalate his memory loss.

And yes, my folks are going on a road trip. My Mom's plan is do a majority of the driving, except for the more "rural" parts, which she thinks my Dad should still be able to handle. SMH. I wish I was making this all up. I have offered repeatedly to come with to help out and have been shot down every single time.

So get your Dad's license suspended and then explain to your mom he probably won't be covered by their insurance anymore and so if she wants to risk him crashing and killing someone and being sued for everything she owns, that is her business. Otherwise she can take his keys and/or disconnect the car battery.

In my case, bluntly telling my mom that I thought she should, and possibly could, be sued for everything if my dad killed someone was what it took for her to get the doctor to tell him not to drive anymore. I have no idea if that was legally even true, but the thought of losing her comfortable retirement was what it took. It's a little gross that imagining him killing a child didn't do it, but whatever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And yes, my folks are going on a road trip. My Mom's plan is do a majority of the driving, except for the more "rural" parts, which she thinks my Dad should still be able to handle. SMH. I wish I was making this all up. I have offered repeatedly to come with to help out and have been shot down every single time.

So get your Dad's license suspended and then explain to your mom he probably won't be covered by their insurance anymore and so if she wants to risk him crashing and killing someone and being sued for everything she owns, that is her business. Otherwise she can take his keys and/or disconnect the car battery.

In my case, bluntly telling my mom that I thought she should, and possibly could, be sued for everything if my dad killed someone was what it took for her to get the doctor to tell him not to drive anymore. I have no idea if that was legally even true, but the thought of losing her comfortable retirement was what it took. It's a little gross that imagining him killing a child didn't do it, but whatever.

Yeah, I tried that tactic last week... stating that they could lose everything should my Dad cause an accident and harm someone and it comes out he has Alzheimer's. That's when I was told by my Mom, " I am not a child and don't need to be lectured by you."

[Anonymous]

OP I'm one of the PPs who's BTDT.

1) You can't call around to doctors to find which one is seeing your dad - they can't give out that information unless the patient authorizes it. So unless your parents are willing to have you directly involved with his medical practitioners, you're not going to be able to use this route to get your dad off the road.

2) The fact that your parents visited a continuing care facility (with options for living independently as well as options for more care) is a great start. But you may need to be the driving force, so to speak. One of my siblings really pushed our father to make this move after his diagnosis led to losing his license. It was hard; my dad wasn't really sold and it was excruciating for all of us to see him leave his home (and community) of 40+ years. But it was such a great move for him: tons of social opportunities and all the support that he needed (for a fee of course.)

In retrospect I'm so grateful that my sibling is pushy and could be the PITA who got the ball in motion and didn't stop until the move was done. It's absolutely necessary and it's too hard/scary for your mom to do without some really forceful outside involvement. Let that be you, now, before you're all scrambling to respond to a crisis. Unfortunately that will come sooner than you think.

[Anonymous]

This may sound cold, but don't plan to move to them. If you like your lives and careers and set-up here, that is.

Start researching assisted living and memory care options near you besides the options your Mom is researching near them, and have that discussion with your Mom about them moving closer to you.

She may not wish to, but I think that's a better option to present than you moving your whole family unless that's something you wanted to do anyway. Especially if medical care is also hard to access from where they are too--and if it's that much harder for your sibling to visit where they are versus you due to airport availability. Moving signals that you're taking on their elder care as your responsibility.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
And yes, my folks are going on a road trip. My Mom's plan is do a majority of the driving, except for the more "rural" parts, which she thinks my Dad should still be able to handle. SMH. I wish I was making this all up. I have offered repeatedly to come with to help out and have been shot down every single time.

So get your Dad's license suspended and then explain to your mom he probably won't be covered by their insurance anymore and so if she wants to risk him crashing and killing someone and being sued for everything she owns, that is her business. Otherwise she can take his keys and/or disconnect the car battery.

In my case, bluntly telling my mom that I thought she should, and possibly could, be sued for everything if my dad killed someone was what it took for her to get the doctor to tell him not to drive anymore. I have no idea if that was legally even true, but the thought of losing her comfortable retirement was what it took. It's a little gross that imagining him killing a child didn't do it, but whatever.

Yeah, I tried that tactic last week... stating that they could lose everything should my Dad cause an accident and harm someone and it comes out he has Alzheimer's. That's when I was told by my Mom, " I am not a child and don't need to be lectured by you."

"Mom, you're acting like a child refusing to face facts. This sucks, it's horrible and awful, and I'm here to grieve the loss of Dad's memory and support you in figuring out how to handle Dad's care and all else with you. Part of that support is not looking away from certain big changes that need to happen now and that means taking away dad's keys."

[Anonymous]

I don’t actually think it’s OP’s responsibility to get her dad off the road. Blame lies with dad’s doctor and mom. Everyone pile blame on the daughter who lives out of state, who doesn’t have title to cars! She might not even know who her father’s doctor is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t actually think it’s OP’s responsibility to get her dad off the road. Blame lies with dad’s doctor and mom. Everyone pile blame on the daughter who lives out of state, who doesn’t have title to cars! She might not even know who her father’s doctor is.

This was already discussed earlier in the thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP I'm one of the PPs who's BTDT.

1) You can't call around to doctors to find which one is seeing your dad - they can't give out that information unless the patient authorizes it. So unless your parents are willing to have you directly involved with his medical practitioners, you're not going to be able to use this route to get your dad off the road.

2) The fact that your parents visited a continuing care facility (with options for living independently as well as options for more care) is a great start. But you may need to be the driving force, so to speak. One of my siblings really pushed our father to make this move after his diagnosis led to losing his license. It was hard; my dad wasn't really sold and it was excruciating for all of us to see him leave his home (and community) of 40+ years. But it was such a great move for him: tons of social opportunities and all the support that he needed (for a fee of course.)

In retrospect I'm so grateful that my sibling is pushy and could be the PITA who got the ball in motion and didn't stop until the move was done. It's absolutely necessary and it's too hard/scary for your mom to do without some really forceful outside involvement. Let that be you, now, before you're all scrambling to respond to a crisis. Unfortunately that will come sooner than you think.

Unfortunately, OP’s dad is not going to be able to take part in these social opportunities for long with Alzheimers. My FIL just became more and more confused, upset, irate, and ultimately depressed.

[Anonymous]

If Dad can't recognize Mom then deactivate his car. Remove
the battery and deactivate his car. Have Mom hide her keys.

....Signed, daughter whose Mom has late stage
alzheimers

[Anonymous]

If you live in VA, you can report him to the DMV and they will do a medical evaluation. Depending on the outcome, they would take his drivers license away. I'm sure other states have a similar program. They will not disclose who requested the evaluation:

https://www.dmv.virginia.gov/webdoc/pdf/med3.pdf

[Anonymous]

I had a coworker whose FIL had developed Alzheimer's and was still driving. He was in a retirement place that also have assisted living. One morning he took another lady living in the assisted living portion for a "drive". They were stopped by one cop on a hwy going the wrong way about 4-5am. Later there was a report they were stopped by another cop going the wrong way on an interstate about 5-6 am. Then there were no reports until lunch time. At this point some people at a shop noticed the confused elderly couple wondering down a busy street. He had driven to another city 55 miles away and eventually ran out of gas. They then left the car and had started wondering.

The coworker and her family were worried all day until they were notified that they were found. The other family was so upset that their mother had been taken, coworkers FIL was kicked out of the place he was living. The family finally realized that they needed to take his keys away.

It is hard, but you don't want your dad doing this. Driving the wrong way could have easily killed someone as well as them. Also, wondering around lost they could have ended up easily getting hurt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t actually think it’s OP’s responsibility to get her dad off the road. Blame lies with dad’s doctor and mom. Everyone pile blame on the daughter who lives out of state, who doesn’t have title to cars! She might not even know who her father’s doctor is.

Would you feel that way if op’s dad killed your child? It’s not that she’s entirely responsible or that anyone could be 100 percent effective in making him get off the road but she absolutely has a responsibility to do her best.

[Anonymous]

PP said: “In my case, bluntly telling my mom that I thought she should, and possibly could, be sued for everything if my dad killed someone was what it took for her to get the doctor to tell him not to drive anymore.”

This is what worked for my grandmother. Her initial response was “I have insurance” but once we explained she could lose her own money as well, that sealed it.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s very hard to get an elderly parent to stop driving. They are very hardheaded about giving up any privileges.