Dementia dad and driving

[PopcornPoppingInAPan]

Sorry for long post :-(

My 80 year old father has not been fit enough to drive for some time, in 2022 I reported him to DVLA and his licence was eventually revoked.

Since then he has been diagnosed with vascular dementia caused by two small strokes, not expected to get worse but he is still physically and cognitively unsafe to drive.

My father is unfortunately convinced he is safe to drive, that his licence was revoked due to an “administrative error” (I told him I’d reported him to the DVLA but he seems to have forgotten).

He keeps trying to raise it with medical professionals, wants to write to his MP about how outrageous it is. He’s obsessed with it.

While medical professionals v unlikely to support his application to get licence back their approach is always to kick the can down the road eg, “We’re waiting for further test results and need those before I can consider” or (new GP) “I will have to discuss your medical history with your usual GP.”

I understand this is probably the recommended method, because you often can’t rationalise with people with dementia and it’s better to try to distract them.

The issue is this: we have concerns that my Dad is going to get so fed up he just decides to drive anyway. He had already said “If they catch me it’s only a £1000 fine” and seems to think it’s a risk worth taking. He knows he would not be insured and that it would be illegal but doesn’t seem to care.

I’m getting slightly desperate as to what we can do. Hiding the keys may work once or twice but isn’t a permanent solution. If he does drive then yes, we can call the police, but clearly we really need to stop it getting to that point!

Does anyone have any advice please?

I’m wondering if we push the GP to tell him no, he cannot drive, and to put this in writing. That might make it harder for my dad to maintain his licence was revoked only because of an administrative error. But maybe it won’t.

The only advice I can find is again, try to distract the person but it’s just not sustainable to keep doing this, we need a more permanent approach.

I also wondered about trying to get the GP or adult social services to declare him as lacking in capacity to decide whether he can drive, but what good would that do unless we went down the full deprivation of liberty route and put him in a secure care home. (He is doing stints of respite care in a care home but I don’t think it’s a secure one).

Help, please!

@PopcornPoppingInAPan it feels like your dad won’t take anything on board as he is no longer rational. It’s not really the GPs job to tell people they can’t drive who have already been stripped of their licence. Hard for your dad and hard for you and your mum. I’m also wondering whether as you say your dad has a temper, if there’s an element of him having had conitrile within the family and it’s hard for everyone to get used to not doing what he tells them? Including him!
I have some experience of this and similar situations and honestly you and your mum need to be firm and tough now or this one could run and run. He is not safe to drive, end of.
Feel for you x

Thanks all.

@orangegato he's arranged for a garage to collect the car on Friday to make it roadworthy again, but my mum is going to try to talk to the garage before then. I agree @11NigelTufnel, getting the garage to “condemn” the car and/or sell it for us would be ideal. mum is frustrated that dad has booked it into the garage now as he’s due for another respite stay in a couple of weeks and it would have been much easier to do this then.

@NotDoingOk they’re actually in the midlands but we searched for leading dementia consultants (we thought dad had frontotemporal dementia and needed to find a super-specialist). He did have a driving assessment before his licence was revoked which he scraped through. A motability scooter wouldn’t help as he lives in a small village without facilities and wants to go to the nearest town a 20 min drive away.

@greenbeansnspinach he does had a temper which has got much worse, but my mum, sister and I have always stood up to him. So it’s not that he’s controlling, more that it’s just generally difficult and unpleasant dealing with someone short tempered. My instinct is to be firm but the consensus is that won’t make much difference and he won’t accept it, hence having to consider other strategies!

@HowDoTheyGetThroughLife my concern about selling the car without trying to get his agreement is a) my mum has a car so he may try to drive that (agreed in theory my mum should be able to keep the keys secure but in practice that has already failed once). And b) he might just go online and order another car. I don’t know if you’d need to prove you have a driving licence and insurance to buy a car or not.

@AnnaMagnani - I suspect my dad would pass a capacity test re where he lives, and I’m not sure it would help us if he didn’t. This is because the care home where he goes for respite care, reasonably willingly, is not a dementia specialist home. Therefore I don’t think they would take him if he were deemed not capable, and the option would be to take him to another home kicking and screaming where I assume they may need to sedate him to keep him in there. Which would be horrific/a last resort. How did your FIL respond when he wasn’t taken home? My dad is refusing to countenance a more permanent move.

@Needmoresleep thats an interesting suggestion re asking him to “donate” the car to a cause. I’d have to pretend that my family needed a second car, but we don’t and I’d want/need to sell it.

My dad (86) had dementia and would have continued driving up until his dying day if he had been allowed.

DVLA didn't revoke his license but as a family and the Dr (with POA) we made the decision it was unsafe for him to drive.

We fully explained to Dad the decision. On one day he would totally understand, the next his dementia would take over and he would be wanting to 'drive to Scotland for work' (we live in the South and he hasn't worked for 15 years).

I took his car and keys away and every time he asked about driving we just repeated the same the reason. He eventually stopped asking to drive.....he then suggested a mobility scooter as a compromise!! That was also out of the question but for someone with Dementia he certainly wasn't daft

Have you applied for Attendance Allowance. This would provide money for taxis

My mother was odd. She would boss me around, and indeed was pretty beastly to me. But worried DH would put his foot down and demand I focussed my attention on him not her. (Very Victorian.)

I was able to use this. She would not allow me to refuse to do something, but if I hinted that DH was unhappy she would back down. Hence giving him the car. Is there anyone, relative or professional that your dad defers to. For example we got the priest to tell my mother to sign the POA. She would get upset about not having access to a cheque book, (she gave away bank details to phone scammers) and not having a car but eventually forgot.

I also wrote out essentially an origins story..why she was living in sheltered housing, yes she did have money, her hip hurt because she had had a fall. Answers to all the repeated questions, so she could get answers when I was not there and she was panicking.

@PopcornPoppingInAPan it was a specialist dementia home and that made a lot of difference.

FIL wasn't able to remember how long a week was so couldn't tell when he was meant to go home. The home advised we never said 'good-bye' as this was upsetting but always made an excuse about needing to go to the loo, or get something from the car and then left with no fuss.

This was excellent advice and very helpful.

Bless you @PopcornPoppingInAPan this is such a difficult situation, you just don't know from day to day what someone with dementia will do. Your Dad won't accept or understand his dementia so I'd talk about the strokes, tell him it could happen again with the stress of driving so the Dr has said no more, he may accept that, but I know they change from day to day and suddenly an idea from the past comes out of nowhere. I'd speak to the garage about them disabling the car if necessary, you could even sell it and tell him it was stolen? Sadly, I found the best way to deal with dementia was to become a bloody good liar, if it stops a problem just go for it because it's so much better than your your DF going out there and hurting someone

I would take the car off him before he drives and kills someone. The problem with a revoked licence is that it can be reapplied for (realise he may not be able to do this due to his dementia). I think you need to take some actual action rather than try and reason with him, especially if his cognition is impaired.

We had to navigate this recently. It was a nightmare, especially as my mum was the one pushing for him to keep driving as she saw it as her independence.
My dad cannot walk unaided, has very weak arms and shoulders now and is very deaf. He admitted he had got his foot stuck on the accelerator but my mumsaid it could happen to anyone!
My sister and I sort of turned a blind eye reluctantly until he had two accidents within six months, one of which involved the car rolling backwards onto a busy main road which mercifully was clear.
We thought we were home and dry when his car was written off but unbelievably my mum was keen he got another car. We ended up calling every local garage to explain the situation and we refused to take them to look at cars.
Thankfully they reluctantly came to their senses when they realised my sister and I were deadly serious.
At the moment, my mum is still sulking and refusing to take taxis.

Dalek's has some good advice.

When my mum demanded to go home from her very sheltered housing I would say 'when you are better', suggesting that the problem was her fall not her memory. She effectively recognised she would be able to cope in the short term but needed the hope.

I found a book called "Contented dementia", though imperfect, had good tips about the sort of lying needed. It suggests a person's emotions are green amber and red. You want to stay in the green zone so you rein back if they start getting upset. When I had to get my mum somewhere I would arrive with a packet of biscuits. This made her happy so we started on the right foot.

With driving one question is would you let your parent drive your own children. If not they should not be on the road. What if they were to kill a child.

@Needmoresleep that reminds me of when my FIL got me and ds to get in the car with MIL driving to a local beauty spot while he and dh went in the other car. I hadn't been driven by MIL for years- looking back I'm not sure I ever had in fact. I was a bit mystified at him insisting.

MIL's driving was erratic and I didn't feel safe. After we got back FIL explained to dh that he'd been worried about MIL driving and wanted my opinion on whether he should take action. Dh asked me, and was shocked that I kicked off about them putting ds at risk. Have never quite forgotten that FIL was happy to risk ds's safety to get my viewpoint.

Awful!

Why don't you just write a fake letter from the GP saying you are not allowed to drive ?

sell the car

My MIL refused to stop driving, she didn’t have dementia, she quite simply didn’t give a toss about how dangerous her driving was (mounting the pavement, not stopping at junctions, coasting downhill out of gear etc) Eventually her DCs simply took the car, told DVLC, her GP and the police that they’d done .
She created merry hell but she was honestly a complete menace on the road.

Update from my mum, who is also pressing the GP for a decision (rather than my dad having to wait many months for a decision from the DVLA who will have to contact the GP in order to make that decision).

“I called at the garage this afternoon and they were really helpful. They said that they would only be collecting Dad's car tomorrow and not starting any work on it. If Dad rings next week they will tell him that they are too busy to look at it until the following week (true) when he'll be in the care home. After that they will tell him they are waiting for parts which will buy us 2 or 3 weeks, by which time he should have heard from the GP. I've sent him an email asking for a speedy decision and I have copied you in. The garage said that they could sell the car for us if we want. I put your suggestion that they return the car in an undrivable state but they said that Dad would want to return it to them for repair.”

So hopefully we can engineer it so that the GP says he’s not safe to drive and the garage says the car can’t quickly be fixed and we can just ask the garage to sell it.

Car now sold seemingly with Dad’s agreement 😮‍💨 (by which I mean he may turn round and say he didn’t agree or doesn’t remember agreeing but he did agree on the day!). Thanks all for your suggestions.

Well done. It used to feel like Whac-a-Mole. As soon as one problem was solved another popped up.

When my mother questioned anything I would say “We discussed it and for the …reasons you agreed. Surely you remember.” She was always too proud to say she could not.

For anyone in a similar position there is an easy solution that would add another layer of security …just buy an old fashioned crook lock and keep the key on the healthy persons door keys rather than the car keys.

Worst advice ever I’ve dealt with this with my dad
that would simply infuriate them add to the frustration and they would be totally fixated on it and who has the key and getting it removed
the carer would take the brunt of this dementia can make people very aggressive

I’ve worked with dementia patients and you sometimes need something because the other adult needs to keep the car and drive it !!! It’s always looking at individual solutions, nothing is ever a one size fix all solution.