One question that inevitably comes up with families that have a loved-one with Alzheimer’s disease is: when should they stop driving? To me it’s a no brainer. I want to shout, “Immediately!” But, I understand what a difficult decision it is. Driving is a rite of passage and allows an innate sense of freedom most of us take for granted. In fact some days when I’m shuffling a carpool of kids between activities driving feels much more like a prison sentence. It is a major step for someone with Alzheimer’s disease to give up the keys. At the Association we offer a variety of classes geared around support family members and the person to make the decision to stop driving and to help find new alternatives.
When it become evident that my mom was no longer able to drive we battled for a few months over how to make it happen. My dad took to hiding sets of keys, which somehow she was quite adept at finding. He’d arrive home from work to find the car parked halfway out of the garage and the driver’s side mirror missing. It was scary. Not only to think of her on the road and what she might do to those in her path, but also to think of her lost and unable to find her way home. Fortunately, her doctor was proactive and ordered a simulated driving test. I do mean fortunately because we see families every day at work that have been told unbelievable things by their doctors. Things like, “It’s okay for them to drive as long as they drive to familiar places.” This leaves me incredulous as we know that people with Alzheimer’s can’t problem solve and a place that was familiar one day can be completely foreign the next. Nonetheless in my mother’s case, she protested all the way to the driving appointment. She sat in the simulator and after just a few minutes hit a small child. She gave up the keys without another word said. She never drove again.
Tonight on ABC’s What Would You Do there will be a segment titled, “Driving While Disoriented” which features a very disoriented senior trying to drive. I encourage you all to tune in. And, if you’re struggling with a relative who should not be driving visit www.alz.org for help.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17th, 2009 at 2:08 pm and is filed under Alzheimer's Info. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
