Losing Drivers License
My mom was diagnosed with Alzheimers in Sept and the doctor sent a letter to the DMV to suspend her drivers license. She's had an MRI, a Fit To Drive exam and an in office exam and they all indicate that the diagnosis is correct. She is adamant that she is ok to drive and refuses to give up her keys, her car or driving. My sisters and I care for her and we have disabled her car. She still has the where with all to call a mechanic when she realizes that car does not work. She is so obsessed with driving and we do not know what to do, what to tell her or how to help her realize that it is dangerous for her to drive. We'd love some ideas! Thank you!
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Take her out to lunch and have the car towed or otherwise removed. Cancel her insurance as well (you may need power of attorney in order to do that). She may be furious but better than killing someone.
These driving arguments are intense. It was a driving argument with threatened violence that landed my partner in the hospital and thence to memory care.....but the stakes are very, very high.
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Agree with M1. Disappear the car + make sure she does not have the resources available to buy another one. You should be able to cancel the insurance on line without too much hassle.
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I am in a similar situation- I took my mom’s keys a year ago, and in Oct she received the official letter from dmv taking her license away, even with the car gone she is threatening to get someone to take her to buy a new one. I am not sure there is a way to break the cycle of obsession- hang in there and know you are not alone
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I feel for your situation. My father is now progressed to late-stage Alzheimer's. In the earlier stages, he almost fought us to be able to drive. We took the keys away and electronically disabled the car. Ultimately, we made an appointment with his neurologist, who sat down with him (and us) and gave him a choice. He should voluntarily surrender his license and not drive, or he'd let the DMV know.
The Dr explained that his executive reasoning (or something like that) made it dangerous for him to drive and gave him the choice again. He "voluntarily" gave it up (he took it out of his wallet and gave it to the DR (who in turn gave it to us when he wasn't looking).
He made several attempts to go to the garage and try to open the car, but as the disease progressed, those became fewer and fewer. With my dad, I find that he is afraid of disappointing medical professionals, so we started using them as a way to avoid arguments with him and let a professional let him know. We did this when he began refusing medication, and I took him to his primary care physician to have a similar conversation about how he needed to take his pills.
At this point, in late-stage, he can't swallow pills like at the beginning, so because he still has a sweet tooth, we bought a pill grinder and sprinkle them in sweet deserts where he can't taste the bitterness. His sugar levels are fine.
Note: If you cancel the insurance, if the car has a lien holder, they will be notified of that; the lien holder will "force place" insurance on the vehicle and add it to the loan at an astronomical price. Leave an insured driver on the car or sell it. (I learned that the hard way).
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I have the exact problem with an 81-year-old man. He is in total denial and refusal and determined to continue driving at all costs. The garage is only allowed to give me the car, not him. I take it out, and eventually, he wants to drive. Now, he wants me to take it out of the garage at the end of the month so he can park the car on the street even though his license is suspended.
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A couple of years ago, I had to take my mother’s car keys away, who at the time had early stage dementia. It was a battle of verbal abuse, however I had bo choice, since the priority was to keep her safe and to keep those out of harms way on the highways, had she continued to drive.
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My mom is much the same way. She will listen to the doctor and follow their instructions, but my sibling and I don’t know what we are talking about. We have often used the doctor to settle thing( no mom you can’t mow the lawn).
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In our family this hasn't reached it's final resolution. We are waiting on something in the mail letting DB know he's lost his license. In between he's been carpooling with our younger brother to their shared workplace, and I've been taking him to Dr appointments, and other places on days his wife works. There have been two minor show downs but the following is our strongest point getting him to back down. If anything happened, even if it weren't his fault, as soon as it was found you have a dementia diagnosis you could be sued and lose your home and everything that you and your wife have worked for.
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One problem is that talking about how dangerous it is and the financial implications are counting on a level of mental ability that is probably not there. And depending on the stage hoping that they remember that they can't drive anymore and have had the license suspended and are now uninsured as a result may also be counting on memory they no longer have.
We put a steering wheel lock on and that was relatively inexpensive. It led to months of complaints but we stuck to it. Eventually we were able to get rid of the car. In our case the car was extremely old and we donated it to a cause my LO supports. When it comes up we say," your license was suspended and you decided not to drive anymore and donated the car to X".
Getting them to stop driving is one off the hardest things. Through a local senior center we were able to arrange a driver to take our LO to some of their weekly activities which turned out to be only a mixed success. It was a very painful process.
I am afraid you need to disable the car or make it go away (if you have PofA).
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Sometimes the visual is the trigger. If you remove the car from sight and stick with 'it's in the shop', you may be able to avoid the repetitive arguments about driving and instead have repetitive conversations about where the car is.
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Agree with Emily - in many cases, out of sight is out of mind. But vehicles and drivers licenses are equivalent to adulthood and independence (remember when you got your license? Your first car?) and sometimes that feeling still sticks long after the ability is gone. When we got rid of my mom's car, she hadn't driven it in months ... and for the next several months, she would remind me in a snarky way each time we talked that she had to wait for a ride BECAUSE I DONT HAVE A CAR ANYMORE. I'd just say , yes, I'm glad that your friend could take you to wherever. Repeat, repeat. It doesn't last forever ... she has no idea now that she ever drove a car.
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PSG712 is so right. My LO (now in MC, license suspended) has forgotten so much about events, people, her own life, but she still remembers that old car and once in a while will ask about it. I tell her that she decided to get rid of it when she moved.
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Commonly Used Abbreviations
DH = Dear Husband
DW= Dear Wife, Darling Wife
LO = Loved One
ES = Early Stage
EO = Early Onset
FTD = Frontotemporal Dementia
VD = Vascular Dementia
MC = Memory Care
AL = Assisted Living
POA = Power of Attorney
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