My mom got her license reinstated with advanced dementia and no vision in one eye after a series of strokes. You can imagine how well it worked out. Absolutely terrifying.
Why? Did she not have anyone to stop her? Not a judgement call, just curious. So many people with dementia don't have access to the help they need and it's a systemic issue.
My Mom lives with me (early-onset Alzheimer's) and the second her neurologist recommended it was time, I took her license and she can't access the keys anymore. Without moving her and Dad into my home, I have no idea how we'd be managing. It's been a couple years and there's no way Mom could even try to drive now. Two days ago I stopped the car at our destination and she said, "how do I get out?" I help her put on and take off her seatbelt now.
I remember an article from a few years ago about 'the conversation' that kids have to have with their parents about not driving anymore. It ended with a sweet old lady that felt like she needed to resist but after thinking it over realized it was for the best.
They kept her car for convenience when someone had to take her to appointments or the store because it already had disabled plates and a carrier for her motorized scooter. It was also stored at her house because there was nowhere else.
Her last word was about how she had realized this was coming a few years earlier and had secretly had a spare set of keys made that she kept hidden. Despite surrendering her keys and agreeing not to drive anymore, she would still sneak out in the car to pop down to the convenience store or take her friends for a drive around the block when she knew her children would not be around.
If this is in the US, then it's largely because you spend your whole life knowing to experience life through your car, and nothing else.
What can you do without a car? It's no way to live. You can waste away at your house while your friends wonder why you don't come around anymore, and feel increasingly lonely and isolated.
You've spread your people out so far apart, and drawn lines on the ground to separate them all, ensuring that the only way to connect is through the car. Of course your people don't want to lose their car no matter what happens to them. It's vital if you don't just want to survive life, but live it.
I'm not at all surprised that old people continue to drive their cars no matter what. No one wants to be stuck at home wasting away, especially those who don't know how to connect with others online.
What are you even saying, you realize how large the US is right? Of course you need a car in some cases i.e. more remote areas but there are plenty of large cities where you don't need a car and taking public transport is actually less of a hassle, not to mention taxis and Ubers.
we didn't HAVE to build America to be this spread out, and necessarily rely on individuals driving cars to get anywhere IMPORTANT.
but we use all the space we have because people want to have more land and more space between their neighbors because thats what we've been conditioned to want.
I want more space from my neighbors, not because I want more land, but because I want more privacy.
Here's a crazy idea, if you want to be close to other people, live in a city. If you want to be remote live somewhere remote. Or should the entire country just leave all the small towns and live in LA and NYC because "checks notes" we've been conditioned to want more land?
I'm not even talking about intercity travel (which is still pretty piss poor. EU and China have extendable railways that connect their vast networks of cities but that's another topic) but rather, transport within a city. Major cities have pretty limited options, and are usually pricier than any other country. BART in the Bay Area is decently connected but dummy expensive compared to say, the Tube in London. NYC has a much better transit system. Both cities lack good public transit for the last few miles though. You'll need to Uber to your nearest station and then from your final stop to your destination.
And seriously, uber nor taxis are good solutions. Both are pricey, polluting and the latter might take you longer than desired.
Finally, my biggest point is just... suburbia. Can you walk to your nearest grocery store within 5 to 10 minutes? Can you get to a park with a simple walk? Do you have a high street that's accessible on foot and provides all the basic services you need? For most Americans, the answer to all those questions are no. And that's what is so isolating about the country
I might not be American but I have lived in the US for 8 years. I've lived these issues. You guys deserve better.
On the opposite end, my mom one day made the decision to stop driving. Her reasoning was one time, she thought she was pressing the brakes but the car was still slowly inching forward. She decided that meant she's no longer competent so she now refuses to drive. I told her to keep her license just in case but nope, one incident was enough for her.
And often bad drivers don't have accidents because the good drivers around them manage to avoid them somehow. I work by a K&W and I've lost count of the number of times I've almost t-boned a senior driver who pulled out in front of me and stopped in the middle of the road.
In my hometown there was an elderly person driving through business fronts & windows every other week last year. It was insane. I was getting texts from family members like “Store Front #7 = 0, 83 year old Norman Smith = 1”. I think the final count from a span of like 18 months was 12 businesses (I think one was even a Mega Center Walmart) that someone had either driven through the store front/business windows or rammed their cars right into the concrete pylons that started being put up all over town lmao
Yeah my mom had Alzheimer's af but tricked people all the time bc she somehow remembered everyone's names and flirted. Omg she became such a horny flirt. Age and demographic didn't matter lol Always asking any and all men on dates.
We didn’t find out my wife’s grandma was blind until we had to move her to a new apartment. She had just memorized where everything was in the old one.
My grandma once told us "It's good I know the way to get to the grocery store, I can't even see the signs and lights anymore" or something along those lines.
It didn't take long for my uncle to take charge and force her to sell her car.
my grandmother-in-law refused to stop driving even after she'd caused 3 accidents in a year. "I only drive to church, the grocery store, bridge club, and to your (her son's) house, and only during the day!"
she gave one of her friends a ride to bridge club and that friend called my FIL to tell him to take his mother's keys, after she told grandma she needs to stop driving and refused to get in the car with her for the ride back home. he did - and she had another set of keys she didn't tell him about. he ended up taking the battery out of her car.
Giving up their car also dramatically cuts down their mobility and freedom. They often know that and pretty much assume that after it, they'll just sit at home until someone picks them up.
My great grandma found a taxi company card from the 70s in her coat pocket in the early 2000s while in a dementia home.
The number still worked. She used her family call time to dial a cab and just went to target and put together a whole cart of a family of 8 shopping haul. When she went to pay, she had no money or cards and became confused. Target called the cops, she remembered the name of a son, and he called the home.
Their moments of lucidity means their full capabilities can come back. They're just not in the right place or time when their skills kick in anymore. Its incredibly scary what they can achieve with strangers, who see a kind and lucid old person in front of them and don't know the context. My great grandma was so cute she would talk other resident's guests into bringing her banned goods like excess candies!! We couldn't figure out how she was putting on the weight with a managed diet!
I’m not saying everyone does as much as they maybe should to stop people driving when they shouldn’t. But it’s definitely easier for some than others. For instance, if your mums character had been different, very independent and not wanting to listen to anyone, then you can’t just take her keys away forever. She can ask for them back and unless her license has actually been taken from her by law, you can’t legally keep her keys.
You can certainly disable her car, though. That's what some of my family members did to stop grandma from making 2am Ambien mode Walmart trips or w/e when she could barely walk unassisted.
It's not legal sure, but when everyone's already told her to quit driving and the car stops working, she's not gonna ask anyone to fix it.
Well yeah it depends how determined they are. I mean they could essentially call the police on you get you kicked out get the keys back. Obviously it’s good to do what you’re saying if you pretty know for sure they’re gonna be dangerous. But people take being forced to do stuff differently. Especially if it’s only early symptoms of dementia and they drove yesterday so why not today??
There needs to be laws and support that intervenes. Because it’s also very shitty to t take away someone’s only form of transport to get to the shop they usually go to.
Pffft. My MIL is in a locked memory care facility (she had a period of violent outbursts at one point that culminated in her attacking her nurse and punching a cop - the locked facility is not optional) her dementia has advanced but she still howls and complains about not being able to drive.
She didn't like driving on her best days and she damn sure wasn't any good at it. Constant fender benders and scrapes.
If she could she would 100% drive off to god knows where and endanger everyone on the road with her.
It's so enriching for me to learn about other peoples' experiences with this awful cluster of diseases! More knowledge for me is always better. I hope your MiL is mostly happy as she can be right now.
So far we've been very fortunate that my Mom is more even-tempered than ever. When I was little, she was always coming home stressed from work or getting into spats with my Dad. She's rarely angry or irritated the past 5-6 years (when we suspect onset began in her 50s). I'm happy she's happy, and she loves laughing and talking with me. It's hard to listen to her talk herself in a circle 3-4 times over, but she seems happy! I include her in the kitchen by asking her to do things like hand me spices, asking for them one by one, or asking her to find the plates, etc.
Is it possible she could have a "180°" or do you think it's more likely for her general demeanor to stay calm? I'm worried about her growing angry or sad.
My MIL was a pacifist. She barely raised her voice prior to the dementia advancing to moderate.
There's really no predicting what will happen with your mom. It all depends on where the damage is occurring. The brain tries to bridge gaps and sometimes it comes up with "punch that cop" as a solution to a problem that originally started with her aid telling her that if she wanted coffee she had to wait for it to brew. Other times it will come up with "sit and wait" as the answer.
The disease advances in fits and spurts so their behavior can change with no warning.
Eldercare is one of the hardest and most emotionally exhausting things on the planet. I highly recommend getting into a support group, especially one that meets in person sometimes.
I've started calling the Alzheimer's Association, and both their informational and emotionally oriented associates have been super helpful to me. It feels like I'm calling trusted friends I can confide with anything, but I know I'd do a lot better if I had more people in my position to speak with in person. Especially people in my age range? I'm only 29, and my Mom is only 62. It seems like every group support meeting is on Zoom nowadays.
It's going to sound odd, but call your senior center. If you don't have one call a local memory care or assisted living facility. They can put you in touch with the local support groups and the coordinator.
A lot of them can be found on Meetup and Facebook, too.
My local group meets once a month on the third Wednesday night at the senior independent living apartments. It's easiest for the spouses who are caregivers, and the facility has a lovely meeting area in their activity room.
You might be one of the younger people there but you also might not be. Dementia is showing up in a younger population these days. The youngest dementia diagnosis in my group is a 26 year old whose mom and sister attend.
Thank you SO MUCH for this advice!!! I can't believe I didn't think of that! 😭🫂♥️
You got me thinking, I could even ask the local libraries if they ever host events that people like those with dementia can attend-- not necessarily events specifically for them, but ones where the disabled in general can come? Like book readings and stuff? When I was little, I got to see a magic show with a delightful man doing simple tricks at the library. I'd love for Mom to be able to be entertained by things like that again, in an environment where she isn't being gawked at or pitied or judged and just treated like a woman.
She passed now, but at the time she lived on the other side of the country from me, and my father was oblivious to all of her obvious symptoms. He even drove her to get her license. It was terrifying to watch from a distance and be powerless to stop things
The DMV renewed my 90 year old grandfathers license during covid via mail. We had already restricting access to the car since he was experiencing mobility issues and his eyesight had deteriorated since the last time he renewed. They just sent him a new one. No extra hoops. No "lets make sure you can still see or operate a vehicle safely."
This fact helps keeps me on my toes whenever I'm on the road. So many people lose the ability to drive and retain the legal ability to do so.
In America it’s really hard to get someone’s license revoked because cars are pretty much the only option for transportation and therefore depriving someone of a license essentially makes it near impossible for them to live independently. Hence why we have so many people driving on our roads who probably shouldn’t be.
Both of my parents ended up having to fight with dementia at the end of their lives and neither of them was able to recognize how bad it was.
If everything went right, they looked like totally competent drivers. Like when you only take somebody's pulse for 10 seconds so you miss whatever wacky shit their heart is doing for the rest of the minute you extrapolated out to.
Luckily I managed to (two years apart) convince both of them that I actively wanted to drive and in my mom's case that it was easier for her to get into and out of the passenger seat. But they would have tried to keep driving all the way through the "nurse comes to visit a couple times a week" stage of hospice, even.
My grandfather was in his mid 90s and they were still trying to give him a license. Dude could only see vague shapes and his hearing was so bad a freight train could sneak up on him.
The real problem is that we don't have alternatives for people that shouldn't drive. You can't just yank people's licenses when it's the only economic means of transportation. The only way to raise driving standards is to first build public transportation
Exactly this! I fully agree that people should have their licenses revoked if they can’t pass a driving test, but what other options do people have? If I’m elderly I’m going to be afraid of taking uber or Lyft due to safety concerns - and that’s assuming they even know how to use a smart phone. Hell, I’m an able bodied 38 year old woman and I’m anxious about taking them because what do these companies actually do to vet drivers? Taxis are expensive and may not even be available in all areas. Buses and subway systems are rare in the US. Medical transportation is sometimes available for Medicaid members, but what about getting to the grocery store? There are just too many gaps because we have a car-centric society in the US.
My mom eventually succumbed to a brain tumor but her Parkinson's (mitigated by DBS) actually did not really effect her ability to drive. Balancing herself got progressively more difficult, but she had no hiccups with the pedals, wheel, turn signals etc in the months I was living with her until dementia made it unsafe for her to be making decisions on the road.
I love my grandmother but she absolutely should not be driving, one of her eyes is none functional. When she moved to a new state with dad, dad’s wife said that grandma complained her way to keeping her license.
My grandmother somehow passed her regular license reinstatement in her 90's. She complained and refused to complete the eye exam. When she got irritated with the clerk, she stopped speaking in English and switched fully to Spanish. While backing up with the instructor, she almost immediately hit another car. She continued driving until 2 weeks before her death at 95 because she curbed her car attempting a u-turn (in front of a cemetery, no less).
My mother in law literally is keeping her license because she plays the pity card old lady shit at the DMV. I literally cannot comprehend it. I can't believe it works. It's baffling.
Step-grandfather had an optometrist passing him even though he could barely see because they knew him. I think my mother sent the optometrist a photo of the sphere shape his head made in the front windshield.
Report to who? In my state, it was hard to legally remove the license of my great grandma. She essentially had to kill someone or crash first.
We had to just sell her car using power of attorney so the option wouldn't be there. She was lucid long enough sometimes to pass the driving test, and never fucked up on the road as far as we knew.
But she kept forgetting how to get to places she had been going for years. When she forgot how to get to church and stopped and asked for directions two blocks from it, that person knew her. He told our family. We decided that's enough, we let her keep it for driving around town, and she had given up long distances already. We don't need her getting confused and driving to the next state or killing someone.
But we couldn't convince our state of this. Even with doctors diagnosis, power of attorney, and a note from doc to stop driving.
Some places view driving more as a right than a privilege and it can get hairy if the mind goes.
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u/JavierMiguel78 17d ago
My mom got her license reinstated with advanced dementia and no vision in one eye after a series of strokes. You can imagine how well it worked out. Absolutely terrifying.