Pensioner with undiagnosed Alzheimer's and tragic death of baby

[Kindofcrunchy]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-62503903

Can't believe there are no threads on this, or maybe they've all been removed so far, I don't know.

Maybe it's just the pregnancy hormones but I can't stop crying over this. What a tragic waste of life, easily prevented by family and friends of Robertson speaking up when they had concerns over her health. This just goes to show that there needs to be regular driving tests for people of retirement age.

Young men aged 17-24 have more accidents than people with mild dementia

they have more serious accidents, however I live in a town with a very high proportion of elderly drivers and the police here will tell you that older people have a large number of minor bumps and shunts etc . Most of these are not reported to insurance companies as older people are terrified of their premiums rising . Most of the cars around here have a lot of dents and I witness dangerous driving on a daily basis . Last night someone driving at 20mph without variation , so no braking at roundabouts just straight across at 20. A few months ago a car was left on a hill carpark with no brakes on and rolled down the hill narrowly missing a child and ending up banging into two cars. Pulling onto duel carriageways without looking , etc

In my experience - no family members but 20 years experience working with predominantly dementia patients - there are plenty of emotions, but quite often inappropriate or disproportionate ones.

I nearly got seriously injured by a pensioner in a Land Rover (in his eighties at a guess) driving through the side of my megane a few years ago. I was 7 months pregnant. The door buckled so bad I was pinned at my baby bump and had to be cut out. Miraculously me and baby were ok. He was unequivocally in the wrong. I was stopped at a junction on the main road and he pulled out of the side road straight into me. The outcome? A higher insurance premium for me and a written off car. Zero comeback on him because he stopped then forgot it was anything to do with him and left the scene and I wasn’t in a position to get his details. I now drive a bigger car because no one will do anything about this. There should be mandatory retesting from 75.

Robertson’s friend said years ago she felt ‘unsafe’ being with her in her car - just also apropos of nothing I read that Robertson ran a charity called ‘The Way Project’ from her home. Strings pulled methinks 🙄

Link?

Eye opening and relevant thread here, as last week my dad drove his car into my parents house, demolishing their porch as he forgot how to reverse. Mother and I now insistent he isn't to drive any more; this case and reading this thread has eased any guilt I feel at engineering the decision to taking his driving away from him.

Can’t link re Way Project prob best to google 👍🏿

I tried, and can't find anything relevant!?

I asked for a link because I’d read every report that came up in multiple searches and no mention of “Robertson’s friend said years ago she felt ‘unsafe’ being with her in her car”
Link for that?

It is actually really hard to get an elderly person with Alzheimer’s licence and car taken away. My neighbour has it and I rang the drs to tell him she was still driving. He contacted the DVLA and months later they sent a letter asking her to sign that she felt safe to drive. Luckily (sadly) she is confused and didn’t return the letter in time and her licence was revoked BUT she still tried to driver her car as the family didn’t remove it. In the end one of my neighbours ran the car battery down and she hadn’t driven for so long that she has forgotten about it. So in my experience unless the family take some responsibility it is easy for someone to keep driving when they shouldn’t.

In the UK, renewing your photocard licence is done every 10 years and we fill in a form. An eyesight test isn’t part of it.

wowsers. That’s shocking. We need to front up in person and the eyesight test is given by the paper pusher at the desk and it’s on your license whether you need to be vision corrected when driving (so if pulled over police can check you are wearing glasses/contacts if this is specified on your license). If you can’t pass the vision test while wearing your glasses/contacts you don’t get the license.

For the GP sign off for the elderly, it doesn’t add a significant burden as generally this population would be seeing a GP anyway fairly routinely (twice a year at minimum for most). So the form would be done while they were being assessed for repeat medicine scripts for example. It would be rare someone of this age didn’t need to visit a GP and had to go solely for this.

The driving assessor’s are not an issue here either. When this came in it just created additional jobs really. Different in all locations here, but where I am if they want to do the elderly driving assessment at the testing centre (where we all have to go for license renewals with eye tests, and learners have a driving test to get their licence), they would be waiting for months. However, it’s created a market for authorised independent assessor’s who are fairly quick to get into. They do the driving tests with them and sign them off if they pass and that flows through to the testing centre so they only have to then front up there with GP form and have eye test to renew. However they do it, it’s pay for service, they need to pay a fee to take the driving test to renew their license so it’s not the government/tax payers paying for additional assessor’s, it’s being funded directly by the elderly themselves.

@HoppingPavlova you'd be surprised how many people have fairly well developed alzheimer's before yhey see s doctor. My mum hadn't seen a GP for years as no physical issues and always had her flu jab at a pharmacy. Even now she is diagnosed, if you only speak to her for a few minutes you wouldn't realise there was an issue. Luckily she had given up driving as she didn't want to spend money on something she didn't enjoy. Early stage alzheimer's is a bugger as the little signs can often be dismissed as "everyone gets a bit forgetful sometimes". With mum the only real sign for a long time was stopping Internet shopping as "they've made it too complicated with all these passwords and checks".

@HoppingPavlova ”We need to front up in person and the eyesight test is given by the paper pusher at the desk and it’s on your license whether you need to be vision corrected when driving (so if pulled over police can check you are wearing glasses/contacts if this is specified on your license)”

We do have codes on the back of the licence for that, mine says I require glasses or contact lenses to drive. www.gov.uk/driving-licence-codes

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2886140/amp/Impassioned-plea-utterly-bereft-widower-wife-killed-toddler-son-85-year-old-mistook-brake-accelerator-says-DIDN-T-want-driver-jailed.html

They really, really need to start doing full medical a for anyone 65+ who still wants to drive. And frankly, a blanket ban after 80.

As for her lack of remorse. If she was capable of standing trial her dementia can’t be that advanced. All I know is if it were me, even if it was a pure ‘accident’, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself writing to say how sorry I was and to ask for forgiveness.

@Wouldloveanother that link is heartbreaking.

And yes in the case of Mrs Robertson, she was declared fit to stand trial. Also the judge didn't direct the jury to find her not guilty (which could have happened if the evidence of her dementia was so strong as to mean no reasonable jury could find her guilty.) This does suggest that while she undeniably had dementia, it was likely not that far advanced. The verdict could have gone the other way and convicted her. Besides, it's also quite possible to have dementia and also drive badly because - well, because sometimes drivers are shit.

It was reported that immediately after the incident, she told police that she just didn't see the van coming. Again, this suggests a level of awareness and acknowledgement that she was in the wrong.

Every death on the roads is tragic but this case has the added awfulness of the baby being so long awaited; apparently 5 years of trying and then a 'miracle IVF' child. It's just horrendous to think how the parents will ever find acceptance and get through this. Of course, if Robertson had been found guilty it wouldn't have brought their son back; nothing can take away that pain. But it must feel like further torture to see the woman whose actions killed their son not even appear to acknowledge what she's done. I really hope it comes out into the public domain if it's true she continued to drive following the incident. That would be so utterly appalling and a further kick in the teeth to the parents

"there are plenty of emotions, but quite often inappropriate or disproportionate ones."

@Spaghag my husband who is a Neurologist specializing in dementia says this is called "Emotional Incontinence".
He said some of the worst are patients that lose all inhibitions and become highly sexual. Their partners are understandable very upset and distressed by this turn of events.

I don't know why you think older people see GPs twice a year as a minimum @HoppingPavlova. It's simply not true. My mother is in her 80s and hasn't seen her GP for years. She's on no medication

What a ridiculous statement you can’t possibly know as nobody has any idea of how many people with early Alzheimer’s have an accident and how many are driving! This isn’t information recorded. If you have a condition which would be investigated by the dvla you’re potentially a danger to others. However many older people are in perfectly good enough health to drive. And they take responsibility to get regular eye tests and glasses if needed (optician will
advise if your sight isn’t sufficient to drive). Many do surrender licenses. There needs to be a more robust system to identify those not suitable to drive because individuals and families don’t always recognise and quite often don’t act because they fear isolation and increased dependence on others (which is not unfounded).
HGV drivers are required to have medicals perhaps it’s appropriate for car drivers too

Young men are responsible for the vast majority of deaths on our roads @BungleandGeorge

That's a fact, not a ridiculous statement. Because while we might not know how many elderly people are living with dementia, we do know that they're not responsible for most accidents where people are killed.

source of ridiculous statement is this research group. Not going to do literature search to find exact reference but this gives you picture of their specialist knowledge

vaughanbell.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/mckenna_bell_2007_jn.pdf

Did she continue to drive @leicestermare ?? If so that’s shockingly selfish and cold.

she reminds me of the granddad who (accidentally) shot and killed his grandson when he was messing about with his air rifle. He too never apologised and went swanning off on a cruise shortly afterwards.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7204059/amp/Mother-shot-boy-reveals-great-grandfather-apologised.html

we can blame it on whatever medical conditions we want, the fact is she caused the baby’s death and either doesn’t care or is too proud to write a note of apology.

Shelagh Robertson’s friend who didn’t feel safe in her car for years is Angela Brown former teacher -

This was another awful case involving an 87 year old driver who crashed into a Coffee shop and killed someone sitting inside drinking coffee www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-39372458.amp

They really, really need to start doing full medical a for anyone 65+ who still wants to drive. And frankly, a blanket ban after 80.

So you have to have a full medical even though you're still working? That's bats. Why pick that random number?

And it's also ridiculous to ban people driving at 80. Why should competent 80yos lose their freedom. Lots of people are very fit and mentally aware at 80.

There are many people who are well at 80.
but about 20% have severe dementia, let alone mild or moderate level of it