So what do you actually do when they won't admit anything is wrong?

[Halfblindbunny]

My DPs live in the middle of the country. My Dsis lives as far south as you can get and I live near enough in Scotland. DPs are only early 70s though DF has had 2 mini strokes but seemed to recover well from them.

He still drives but honestly I wouldn't get in the car with him, they both get very easily confused and regularly miss appointments etc, they have forgotten their Grandsons birthdays and more recently DSis birthday. DM has refused an operation she needs but had forgotten this and now thinks she is waiting for an appointment to come through which it won't. They never call me but if I call them they will often claim they spoke to me yesterday even if it's been a few weeks.

But they refuse to acknowledge there is a problem and seem to still be able to manage (god knows how) several holidays abroad including long haul destinations.

Can I contact DVLA and suggest DF isn't fit to drive? I can have a guess at which Doctors they go to can I ask them to request they attend for a memory assessment?

It's hard for either of us to visit them and when we have they have got very defensive. I have never been on good terms with them which probably doesn't help but I can't in good conscience leave this to be someone else's problem. So what do I actually do?

You can anonymously report a driver to the DVLA.

Do your parents have capacity? If they do, you should just let them stew in it - so to speak.

Honestly, as someone who works in the NHS. If you’ve never been close & don’t intend to move nearer to them - or move them nearer to you - report to SS.

They need help. You can’t/won’t give it (zero judgement). But somebody needs to. The GP can’t help with general deterioration.

GP can't refer to memory assessment unless they agree to it and ask for it. DvLA don't often remove licences on the say so of another person unless they have caused an accident/ been stopped by police.

We reported DFIL to his GP when we became worried about his memory/driving. It happened after he drove to their local supermarket and didn’t return. DMIL contacted us after he had been missing for about 4 hours and we had to contact the police who managed to find him using ANPR 2 counties away. We had no option after that and his GP agreed with us.

That's what i mean about the police being involved. In my line of work, there are hoardes of unsafe drivers that just carry on because they think they are fine but nothings happens unless the police have had to step in . One of my clients was going the wrong way on a motorway!

But SS can’t help either, if they say (and think) that there’s nothing wrong with them. It’s all too common even for people who do seriously need help, to refuse to engage with SS.

Sometimes you just have to wait for the almost inevitable crisis to happen - while hoping that it won’t.

Sadly as long as they are viewed as having capacity, they can refuse to engage with any offer of help from anyone - and the bar for capacity is very very low. Any GP involvement will need their consent as will any potential Social Work involvement. I don't think DVLA can do much as there is no mandatory re testing on age grounds. It's very very frustrating and a problem that is often misunderstood and misrepresented as the younger generation 'not caring' when actually they cannot do anything.

You scream into the void, that's what you do. Helps if you have something to bite on and you mainline on gin.

Actually, you CAN leave it to be someone else's problem if they are refusing any help and won't admit there is an issue. You are not obliged to sort this out for them. It sounds like you've done your best to offer suggestions and so on, but they aren't interested.
Suggest you leave them to it, and await the inevitable crisis. One of them will end up coming to the attention of the authorities, either because of the bad driving, or an illness or accident, and then they will be in the system, whether they like it or not. It may sound harsh, but that's the reality.

It’s a shame that you don’t know which GP they are under. I have emailed elderly relative’s GPs before with concerns and they’ve always taken action.

I don’t think you’re wrong to be worried at all, but I would say at the moment things are relatively mild. Forgetting appointments and conversations, not initiating calls. When they are in their own familiar routine they are probably doing ok - shopping, eating, keeping roughly clean. I share your astonishment that they are managing holidays but clearly something clicks in and they are coping at the moment. (Are they doing SAGA cruises or something like that where there’s a lot of discreet support?)

My own view now is that trying to head off problems that haven’t happened yet is borrowing trouble. It may in the future with hindsight be clear that action X would have prevented event Y - but if they won’t agree to X that’s not much help, and anyway, event Z will happen whatever you do, and action X was in fact just as likely to trigger crisis W. Moving my mum was probably a bad idea in hindsight, for example - the familiar routine really matters at this stage.

So tackle the driving, for sure as that’s an issue now - report them anonymously to the DVLA. But don’t have huge expectations. Some types of memory aren’t necessary for driving. Maybe call them more often?

Forgot to add, I found the book Twilight Shepherd by John Oakestone very helpful.

I think you just have to wait for the inevitable crisis and be ready to pick up the pieces to some extent.

I spoke to my mum’s GP when I was concerned about her and wanted to try and get her on dementia medication and he called her in for a ‘well woman check’ which was to include a memory check. She and my dad forgot about the appointment but I managed to get them home from town and to the appointment just in time!

The dr gave her a brief memory test which she failed and then suggested he refer her to a memory clinic where they could do a more thorough assessment and perhaps give her some medication if she needed it. My parents looked up to doctors so agreed without hesitation.

When I got to the point I no longer wanted to get in the car with my dad I checked his driving licence and it was going to expire a few months later. I decided I wasn’t going to help him renew it online and he wouldn’t be able to do it himself. He was not driving much anyway as had just been through all the lockdowns so I just told to see how he got on for a few weeks with taxis etc. and I removed the keys from the house.

A few months later he was at the memory clinic and when we got the results the person from the memory clinic said that he had scored particularly low on the spatial awareness part of the test that they wanted to know if he was still driving as they would be advising him to stop. I don’t know if they would have reported it to DVLA as he hadn’t got a licence by then but I would say ask their GP to call them in for a quick check up / memory test.

This is the conclusion I have come to with my dad. Just waiting.

I lived 200 miles away, my DSis 100 miles away. My DM refused any help, although we kept trying and thank god the local community support charity were more than brilliant.

We were getting more and more calls from worried neighbours until it all came to a head, resulted in all three emergency services having to attend during one of last years storms. She was off her meds, not eating, and unable to manage.

I managed to persuade her to try respite care - she was adamant that she would never go into care, she wanted the family to step in and look after her, despite us all living a long way away.

Thank fuck she finally realised that she couldn’t cope and decided that she wanted to stay in the care home (which was pretty good, staff were lovely). Died six weeks later. I was so relieved that she was well cared for in those last weeks.