<p>I guess there’s just no easy way out. Her occupational therapist says there is no way she will ever drive again, but I don’t think she is willing to tell my mother that. I think we will have to depend on the neurologist to be the bad cop. The not going home part, I’m not sure.</p>
<p>Preironic, I wonder if you can get away with just not bringing up the subject and hoping she will accept the situation? My friend’s parents have been in assisted care for over a year after her father broke his hip. They still talk wistfully of returning home, but no one believes that will ever happen. </p>
<p>I agree with Aquamarinesea, the doctor is the best one to tell someone they shouldn’t be driving. Unlike children, the doctors seem to be revered with godlike esteem. My mom has a friend in an Alzheimer’s unit and she still speaks angrily of how the woman’s son “took her car keys away from her”. When I ask if she thinks her friend should still be driving, she says “of course not”, but somehow the son is still the bad guy.</p>
<p>My mother has a friend who is legally blind. Her doctor reported this to the DMV so her drivers license was revoked. He told her that she should not continue to drive. Even though she no longer has a license, she still continues to drive. Her daughters have not taken away the keys to the car. Obviously, this is a very dangerous situation. My mother isn’t sure if the daughters are even aware that her drivers license was revoked. They live thousands of miles away and are not involved in her life. My mother wonders if she should turn in her friend to the police. What should be done in this situation?</p>
<p>preironic, I was told that cognitive impairment ALONE would qualify my parents for their LTC benefits. Once that threshold was met, there was no need to prove the ADLs. They did qualify on ADLs, as it turned out, so we never had to jump through the cognitive impairment hoops. Every policy is different, but that’s something you could ask about.</p>
<p>If she’s not going home again, is there a need to address the driving issue? That’s at least one hard conversation you might be able to avoid.</p>
<p>aquamarinesea, I have very strong feelings about the driving situation. In my opinion, your mother absolutely has a duty to report her friend. If she wavers, ask her how she’d feel if she didn’t report her, and then she killed someone.</p>
<p>Preironic- Agree with momsquad that you may get away with focussing on how her present situation is meeting her needs, noticing how helpful individuals and the environment is as she works to regain strength. Then the next place will address the next set of needs. </p>
<p>Sometimes we are so aware of the last time x or no more y, while our loved ones are entrenched in the here and now. It can be a relief to just have the care in place. Also, if the elder trusts family members, seeing your comfort with the situation can be reassuring. </p>
<p>Aquamarinesea- Yikes. This is more common than I like to think it is. I wonder what the police would suggest in this situation. Perhaps the local station could be contacted initially without naming anyone to see what they would suggest. They may have a discrete way to handle things. </p>
<p>This is one area where I see few shades of gray. You feel complicit if you don’t act on information like this. I have a friend with a relative in this situation. It is not her place to be the heavy and those who should address it are just crossing their fingers. Coincidentally, my family was almost hit broadside by this same relative years ago. The situation stuns me.</p>
<p>Crazy as this sounds, my mom’s friend is not the only person she knows who is driving without a license. She has a gentleman friend who is in his late 90’s. He is extremely feeble. He still insists on driving when they go out to a restaurant. He cannot get in or out of the car without someone’s assistance. He can barely even walk with the aid of a walker. Then there is the man who regularly runs into the mailboxes and stop signs in her continuing care community. These elderly people do not want to give up driving even though they are endangering other’s lives. Honestly, I don’t know why their kids haven’t taken away the keys.</p>
<p>Pretty scary. I am surprised that AL facilities would knowingly ignore an accident-prone resident. There are programs to assess elders driving capacity and make recommendations. I could not sit back on the driving issue. Too much at stake.</p>
<p>That’s terrifying, aquamarinesea, but unfortunately, not surprising.</p>
<p>The kids haven’t taken away the keys because it’s such a hard thing to do. Of all the difficult conversations I’ve had with my parents over the last 3 years, the very hardest one was taking away Dad’s keys. Much, much harder than telling them it was time to leave their house, or taking away control of their money. No one wants to do it, which is understandable. It’s awkward and embarrassing and hurtful, and the parent may fight it like hell. Those aren’t good enough reasons IMO.</p>
<p>I posted this in another thread awhile back, but it bears repeating: When I wavered on taking away Dad’s driving privileges, I kept coming back to one thought: What if my D were killed by a senior driver whose adult children knew he shouldn’t be driving, but did nothing? If my dad had killed someone else’s D after I knew he was dangerous, I don’t know how I would have lived with myself.</p>
<p>I’m new to this thread. There are a lot of issues her that I’ve dealt with (and still am dealing with) but having read the past few pages I have a few concrete suggestions which may be helpful regarding handling elder parents’ finances. There’s no single answer, but a few options we chose with my in-laws have proved to be pretty useful.</p>
<p>**Do it now.**First, it’s important to set things up before your parents are too far gone, if possible. Sometimes you can’t, if so, you just have to do the best you can. The important thing is that many old people recognize their decline, and welcome the ability to entrust their finances to another. The key word is “trust.” My FIL came to me (I’m the only lawyer in the family) and asked me to take over his finances before I was even aware of how much he was struggling. I’m not “that kind of lawyer” so I had to consult with others who were, but it was clear that I was the one he trusted to take on the job. That’s important. It’s not something you can fob off on someone else - it has to be the person the elder trusts for that job.</p>
<p>Power of attorney vs. living trust. I’m not a fan of living trusts. There are lawyers and companies which flog them like soda pop to anyone with a checkbook, extolling their magical powers. Many people spend thousands on the nice binder and pretty papers and just put it on their shelf, where it is soon worse than worthless. (I noted some comments about this above. It’s common.) But when the time comes that an elderly person is prepared to have a family member he or she trusts take over their finances, it is the best vehicle for doing so. A power of attorney leaves the assets in the elder’s name, where they can be the target of scam artists. (I have stories…) By putting the assets in a trust, and having your elder name you as the trustee, the scam artists have to figure out how to steal it from you. But all financial reporting (1099’s, etc) is still done under the tax ID of the elder/trustor/beneficiary. So this is the right time for a living trust. But then you have to do the legwork of actually transferring assets into the trust - close the old bank accounts, open new ones in the name of “Trusted Son, trustee of the Kluge Family Trust” or whatever. Same thing with brokerage accounts, house deeds, etc. That means you sign for everything. I left one bank account and one credit card in my FIL’s name, with auto-pay for the credit card out of that account. I linked that account to the trust bank account so I could transfer funds between them, making sure that he always had ample money to pay for anything he wanted, but not enough so that if he got fleeced somehow the loss would be significant. That way I was overseeing his finances but not looking over every dollar he spent. I wanted to respect his independence to the fullest extent possible, while ensuring that nothing fell through the cracks.</p>
<p>Periodic accountings. A trustee is required to provide annual accountings to the beneficiary of the trust. This may seem like a hassle but it’s actually a good thing for both of you. The accounting doesn’t need to be overly technical, but it should be sufficient to inform the beneficiary and allow a third party to track what happened with the finances. I decided to provide quarterly accountings for my FIL - bound in heavy paper, with spreadsheets, summaries, and printouts of every account as of the date of the report. Once I set it up it really wasn’t too much work, and it gave my FIL a lot of happiness. (I’m not sure he really follows much of it these days, but he enjoys our sessions every three months.) This is also handy because, depending on how nosy and/or annoying your siblings or in-laws may be, it will be good to be able to walk them through every dollar of income and expense for the final years of your elder’s life when it comes time to distribute the estate.</p>
<p>If possible, pay yourself. Obviously, if there’s concern over whether your elder will have enough money to pay for their care for the rest of their life, you need to conserve their resources. You’ll have lots to deal with and you do it for family - that’s a given. If that’s not an issue, however, set a fee schedule with them at the outset, and pay yourself. This is a job. There are fairly standard schedules for calculating a reasonable fee which you can find out with a little research. Getting that set up at the outset can avoid a lot of suspicion, resentment and hostility down the line.</p>
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My biggest regret so far with my Mom (who has Alzheimers) is not being the bad guy and forcing my Mom to stop driving sooner when my Dad and sister pushed to not deal with the confrontation of making her stop driving. Why is this my biggest regret? This put not just my mother at risk but lots of other innocent people who were on the road at the same time as her. We were lucky nothing happened but I can’t imagine living the rest of my life with the guilt of someone’s death due to my lack of backbone to address the problem.</p>
<p>We have told our kids they are dead meat if they drive drunk or high … to me my lack of action was just as bad a transgression … I put people at a similar risk due to my inaction. </p>
<p>For anyone struggling with stopping a parent from driving please stop focusing on the confrontation and on the risk your parent is creating for others.</p>
<p>3 years ago, my 80 year old father got the gas pedal and brake confused while the car was in reverse. He zoomed backwards out of the garage, across the yard, and into the neighbor’s garage. That was the last day he drove. We had a family meeting the next day and explained that “next time”, he might hit someone’s grand child in a parking lot. That hit home with him and he very reluctantly turned in his keys. </p>
<p>For those of you struggling with this decision, look into driver rehabilitation programs. These are usually offered through a rehab facility and are typically geared towards people recovering from some sort of injury. Many times they are offered for senior who needs a driver evaluation. I had looked into this for my father (prior to the above incident). Here’s a link to a program I looked into:[Driver</a> Rehabilitation Program - Kessler Institute for Rehabilitation](<a href=“http://www.kessler-rehab.com/programs/outpatient-services/driver-rehab/#evalutaion]Driver”>http://www.kessler-rehab.com/programs/outpatient-services/driver-rehab/#evalutaion). I believe there was a fee, but it would have been worth it to have someone else tell me he wasn’t fit to drive anymore.</p>
<p>Hi all. I still read along every day though I haven’t posted since my dad passed away in January. The driving issues give me the chills as I recall what only took place a few short months ago. Dementia/alzheimers and driving do not mix. We had to issue two silver alerts on my dad in the span of two months time. And shortly after he died I was in the pharmacy that he frequented and the pharmacist relayed a story to me I knew nothing about. She told me that a full year earlier that the store had to enlist security to help my father find his car in the parking lot. Scary, and I had no idea anything like this was occurring. I contacted our local police department who put in a notice to the DMV who then sent a letter requiring my father to be retested. At that point it was moot though as the last silver alert incident scared him enough to stop driving. This thread and the nursing home thread make it abundantly clear that it is so important to have thorough discussions with our parents about their wishes long before these problems arise. I am still haunted daily by the thought that I did not do enough or right by my father at the end. I know he wanted to be home and it kills me that I didn’t make that happen for him. Major hugs to all that are dealing with sick and frail elderly parents. It is so very hard.</p>
<p>Thanks for checking in anxious mommy.</p>
<p>Loss of driving was so tough for my dad; that speeded up his decline, but he was becoming dangerous on the road. </p>
<p>I am sorry you are still haunted daily by regrets. From reading your posts, I truly believe you did that absolute best you could given the situation. Sometimes you just can’t make the “wants” into reality no matter how hard you try. And that’s okay. I think you will eventually make peace with it all. You were a wonderful daughter. Hugs to you.</p>
<p>Hugs to anxiousmommy and others on the thread. We make the best decisions we can at the time. Sometimes, it is the least bad option we must take. I think keeping our parents safe is paramount. Sadly, doing so may mean having them move out of their homes. Regarding the driving, I was the “bad guy” that took my Dad’s keys away. He was not happy and blamed me. Truly, I felt that the rest of my family (who agreed with the outcome) threw me under the bus! Even though it was hard, it was necessary. As others have said, what if he had killed someone? I don’t minimize the difficulty of getting a senior to give up driving (and the resulting logistical complications), but my Dad’s reflexes and reasoning were worse than a drunk driver near the end and he needed to be off the road. It is not fair to the rest of the community if we allow unsafe drivers to stay on the road.</p>
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<p>In situations like this, perhaps it would be best if the whole family took away the keys. This avoids one person being the “bad guy.”</p>
<p>This topic just got me thinking. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve been in my mother’s car when she’s driving. She lives 6 hours away. Whenever I go to visit her, she always asks me to drive when we go out. Next time I visit, I need to put my foot down and insist that she drive at least one time so I can assess her driving abilities. I have no reason to believe that she’s having problems, but you never know.</p>
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Can a doctor require (recommend?) to DMV that an elder’s driver’s license be revoked in instances like this? Can he contact DMV directly? I suspect that in some (many?) cases that it is not only the issue of avoiding confrontation with the elde,r but also the real possibility that someone else will now be the taxi service for the elder if car keys are taken away.</p>
<p>aqua - trust me - I wish the whole family had stood by me since they enthusiastically supported the decision. They were just avoiding confrontation and it was sad. I think having your mom drive with you when you visit is a good idea.</p>
<p>CTTC - in our case, it was the confrontation, not the resulting transportation difficulties that was the problem. I do agree that transportation difficulties are likely a contributing factor to delaying the tough conversation in many situations. I was at least able to get my mom to agree to always drive when my parents were going somewhere together for about a year before the keys were taken away.</p>
<p>I have made a point to ask my mom to drive when I am visiting. This strategy has a negative consequence though, as now she will proudly proclaim that she has PROVEN that she is a safe driver. Yet the unexplained dents, scratches and dings continue to appear on the car. I also wonder how many times she has forgotten where she parked. I led us in the wrong direction recently when we were returning to my car at a large shopping mall. She was almost gleeful, “Even young people forget where they park!”. The topic hadn’t come up before, so she must have been thinking of her own previous experience. My brother has already indicated he wants the car, so any attempt on his part to pry the keys from her will be viewed as purely selfish. We are hoping a transition to assisted care, with ample transportation provided for residents, will put the problem to rest.</p>
<p>Kluge, you brought up some important points about control of finances. Once my brother got a handle on all the accounts it was clear that she had been failing for years. She had bank accounts that were completely forgotten, only uncovered when 1099’s appeared in the mail. I am dubious about the idea of paying oneself from the trust for ongoing financial management. The payment an executor receives as part of the work associated with settling the estate is understandable, but expecting to receive payment for ongoing financial management is another matter. Financial management is just one small component of senior care. I would gladly trade the work I am doing finding her caregivers and selecting assisted care facilities with my brother, who is tallying the accounts. Even after hiring a senior care manager the work seems endless. The care manager has the audacity to bill us an hourly fee, even though her primary involvement seems to be relaying my list of instructions to the minimum wage caregivers. Yet I would feel strange expecting payment for the work I am doing, and I know my brother doesn’t expect compensation for ensuring she is safe from fraudsters.</p>
<p>When I tried to sort through my father’s office a few years ago, it became clear that his dementia must have started years earlier than anyone realized. He had started a few years back just putting everything in piles – every piece of mail he’d received, from important things that should have been dealt with, to junk mail. My father had always handled the finances and my mother had no idea what was going on.</p>
<p>^ The possibility of something being seriously wrong with my Mom was first broached with a doctor after my Dad looked at the checkbook and realized the last few month’s entries made no sense at all. My Mom had always handled the day-to-day stuff and my Dad (and us kids) never checked in to see if things were still OK.</p>