Dealing with my mom and driving

Callihan15

Hi. I am new here. My mom who is considered to have Stage 4 Mild Alzheimer's diagnosed about a year ago. She does not believe she has this disease. They told her to not drive and she could take the test through DMV to see if she could continue. We didn't do it at the time. Now a year later she is pushing to drive but I don't think its a good idea. We took the car away telling her it is in the shop. She has now become very upset that its still not back.
How do you handle this? Should we let her take the test if its even possible to do so? She might forget she took it and want to take it again?
Do we just tell her the reality? You can't drive due to Alzheimer's? She hates to hear that and says she doesn't then gets upset.
She's living on her own still at this moment and very lonely. My brothers and I visit her weekly. Just not sure what to do and I've been having a lot of anxiety over all of this.

JulietteBee

As I have learned here, we are tasked with keeping our parents safe, not happy.

Personally, I would tell her the truth as "Therapeutic Fibbing" is obviously not working. If you tell her, she will get upset for awhile. Sadly, she will quickly forget she is upset and be asking you the same question again in a few weeks. I say, bite the bullet and tell her that her doctor told you last year that she should not be driving anymore.

lilacgirl

I feel your pain. Have been there. It is sooo hard. We finally got her doctor to send her an official looking letter. Once she saw it in writing from the doctor, she accepted it. Not happily. But she stopped bugging us about driving.

H1235

Welcome. My mom is insistent on going to her house. There are so many reasons that is not good for her. She is a hoarder and would want to bring loads back to the facility, she demands to do things she is not capable of or that are dangerous while she is there ( power wash the swing, go down stairs and up to the attic…), we are also trying to thin things out a bit and have had and estate sale that she doesn’t know about she would have a fit if she saw price tags on things, she gets tired very quickly so we would spend an hour one the road getting her there and back and she would be exhausted in half an hour. I could go on and on with examples. I tried fibs and I tried giving her some of the easier for her to handle explanations above. She told me I was being ridiculous and refused to accept any of my explanations. Nothing worked! Unfortunately it has been almost 3 years since she has been to her house and she is still complaining. We often say here you can’t reason with a person with dementia. I find if I even try mom immediately turns it into an argument. I doubt any amount of logic or even results in writing from a driving evaluation would convince her. Anosognosia is common with dementia and is the inability of her brain to recognize symptoms or limitations. Sure you might try the truth, but if she starts disagreeing and getting upset I would stop the conversation right away (that my mean leaving). The only thing I have found I can do is avoid the subject at all costs. If she brings it up and starts making demands and getting upset, I tell her I’m not going to talk about it. If you continue I will leave. I have left a visit early many times. She has no problem telling everyone what a horrible daughter I am for not taking her to her house and will often add that I refuse to even have a conversation about it. I of course can’t explain my reasoning in front of mom. With driving I think most people would understand. With not taking my poor mom to visit her house I look a real b——. If things get too unbearable, you might want to talk with her doctor about medication. It’s helped take the edge off moms anger. In my experience the time between diagnosis and still being able to live alone safely is very short. The anosognosia may cause her to try to do something very dangerous. If you haven’t considered a plan B, it time. Facilities can have a waiting list to get in, even if you think it’s too soon now. I hope something here was helpful.

DBAT.pdf

Anosognosia and Dementia - AgingCare.com.pdf