{ }
AGING
with an
Attitude
When
Taking the
Key is Not
Enough
Dorie Sugay is the Executive Director
of Visiting Angels, a company that
provides living-assistance services to
seniors and adults-in-need who wish
to stay in their own home or receive
one-on-one care within a facility.
This article is for informational and
educational purposes only. It was
written independently of Visiting
Angels. The names of clients and
caregivers were changed to
protect their privacy.
48
A
hh, how we cherish our
independence. And for most, the
symbol of our independence is
the key to a car. For your aging parent(s),
the importance of that key is maximized
as they age. So what do you do when
you see dents on the car, or when Mom
gets lost, or when Dad speeds up and
slows down for no apparent reason, or
when the neighbor jokes about garbage
can abuse?
Chances are that you’ve already talked
to your parent about giving up the keys,
reminding them of the risk. You may
even have succeeded in getting them
to relinquish the key and you are a bit
pleased with yourself and grateful that it
wasn't even as hard as taking candy from
a baby. In fact, it was easy. But then one
day, your jaw drops. You see your Dad
driving down the road with a piece of
someone’s hedge dragging from under-
neath his car.
So you have that talk again and as he
justifies driving, he chuckles and admits
that he has three copies of the key.
“Don’t they get it? – you ask yourself
as your brain throbs. They do get it,
but it’s about their freedom; it’s about
independence. They want to hang on to
it so badly, they deny that with limita-
tions they are experiencing, they could
get into an accident. What can you do?
You might want to consider talking
to their doctor or someone they respect
and see if they would talk to them.
Or you could confidentially write to the
Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV)
requesting that they retest your parent to
see if they are capable of driving. Usually
your elderly parent will be unable to
pass the test and the taking away of their
driving privileges will be their doing,
not yours.
Recently I met a 90 year old who
mentioned he was legally blind (and has
no driver’s license). So when he told me
he drove to town when no one was there
to drive him I shared my concern. But he
justified his risky outing by noting that
he drove down a country road and only
maneuvered through a few city streets to
get to the store.
Immediately, I felt concern for the
students who attended the high school
down the street as I recalled a report
by AAA that stated: “Since older drivers
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2018
are more fragile, the fatality rates are 17
times higher than those of 25-64 year
olds.” They further added that the top
three culprits that put elderly drivers at
risk —impairments to vision, cognition
and motion function—are responsible for
higher crash rates.” On the adjacent page,
you will find a table shared by the U.S.
Department of Transportation, National
Traffic Highway Safety Administration.
The bottom line is that it should concern
you if your elderly parent is driving and
shouldn’t be.
What if you’ve tried “everything” and
your parent still drives? The gentleman I
met told his daughter, “The police won’t
put me in jail, I’m 90!” What you should
never do is just give up or throw your
hands up in the air and say “I don’t know
what to do” because it is during that time
that something regrettable could hap-
pen. Sometimes, you just have to go to
extreme measures to do what is right—to
stop them from driving.
You can choose to avoid making
your parent very upset and allow them
to risk their life and risk hurting some-
one, or you can do what is right. Some
clients have “lent the car” to a nephew.
Others took the car in for repairs and the
mechanic said it was not repairable. Some
simply disabled the car. (The Gilroy PD
says that if a car is a threat to one’s safety
and that of others, and a sibling takes it,
it is not necessarily theft).
If your parent is somewhat cooperative,
you can propose to bring in a caregiver
who can drive him/her around and help
with other “activities of daily living” and
be a companion as well. If none of these
work, the Adult Protection Services takes
the safety threat much more seriously
because if the elderly driver is a threat to
himself or others, they must act on it. If
called to get involved, they would likely
visit with the elderly person and have a
serious discussion. And they might order
removal of the car.
Another friend of mine once told me
that a good test to help you know if its
time to address the driving ability of
one's elderly parent is to consider if you
would feel comfortable if your grandchild
were in the backseat of the car while they
drove. If the answer is no, then it's time
to take steps to prevent their driving. It is
the right thing to do.
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