Hi thank you for allowing me on to this group. Mu dad is 78 and has been diagnosed with dementia. He is still driving and refuses to accept he is no longer a safe driver. He carries his keys round with him by day and puts them under his pillow at night. My mum is unable to access the car to disable anything to stop him driving. He gets angry if anybody tells him he shouldn't be driving and goes in to rage. We are at a loss ad to what to do . He is at late stage 2 dementia
Hello my name is Amanda my dad has dementia and is being super difficult
- Thread starter amandab1974
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it is difficult to give up your last 'power' . Mine is very law abiding, so when I told him that it is no longer legal for him to drive with his dementia, and the DFLA would definitely expect you to do so, he complied
Welcome to Dementia Support Forum @amandab1974.
I assume the memory clinic or the GP told your dad to stop driving, and he no longer has insurance? Do you think the GP telling him he can't drive would make him stop. The other thing you could do is call the police. Your dad might be happier to surrender the keys to them.
This is something that needs sorting sooner rather than later as there is a real risk that he could cause a serious accident.
I assume the memory clinic or the GP told your dad to stop driving, and he no longer has insurance? Do you think the GP telling him he can't drive would make him stop. The other thing you could do is call the police. Your dad might be happier to surrender the keys to them.
This is something that needs sorting sooner rather than later as there is a real risk that he could cause a serious accident.
Hello @amandab1974 and welcome to the Dementia Support Forum. The issue regarding driving after a dementia diagnosis is a very emotive one. First of all, his insurers should be notified about his dementia and if not and he was to have an accident he would not be insured. In fact, if he is no longer safe to drive they would probably take the same attitude.
If you really believe that your dad is no longer safe to drive you need to let the DVLA know and they would rescind his licence. Some of our members have gone as far as asking the police to speak to the person, which obviously can cause a lot of upset but better than the person causing an accident involving either themselves or other people.
I have attached a link to some information about driving and dementia.
Driving and dementia
A diagnosis of dementia is not in itself a reason to stop driving. One in three people with dementia still drives. However, over time, dementia affects the skills needed for safe driving.
www.alzheimers.org.uk
Hi @amandab1974 and welcome to Dementia Support Forum. Giving up driving is something that comes up often on this site. If DVLA have not been informed this needs to be done. Sometimes a test maybe done to see if a person is fit to carry on driving. There are insurance issues to consider but the main reason for taking action is to remove the risk to the driver and to all other road users.
www.alzheimers.org.uk
Driving and dementia
A diagnosis of dementia is not in itself a reason to stop driving. One in three people with dementia still drives. However, over time, dementia affects the skills needed for safe driving.
www.alzheimers.org.uk
Have the DVLA and the insurance company been informed of your father's diagnosis? If they haven't, this needs to be done urgently, by you if necessary, as this is a legal requirement. The DVLA will decide if he can continue to drive or not after consulting his doctors. Sometimes, the DVLA require the person to take a test before making a decision.
It's not clear to me if the DVLA and the insurers have been informed and he has been instructed to stop driving but won't. My elderly friend refused to stop driving and both her surgery and I contacted the local police who sent a police officer round to speak to her. I don't know what he said but the next morning she agreed that I could take the keys to her car.
It's not clear to me if the DVLA and the insurers have been informed and he has been instructed to stop driving but won't. My elderly friend refused to stop driving and both her surgery and I contacted the local police who sent a police officer round to speak to her. I don't know what he said but the next morning she agreed that I could take the keys to her car.
My dad resisted for ages and I understand how he must have felt. When he got his diagnosis (vascular dementia) they referred him to the test centre, and of course he utterly bombed the test so he had to hand his licence in (can’t remember if it was at the test centre or my brother whipped it off him asap and returned to the DVLA). We informed the insurance company to notify them. Because it was all official people telling dad, not just my brother and I, and as he was a law abiding type he did accept it then. To be honest we also hid the keys just in case.
Hi
We had a slightly different journey 💗 as Dad had a shunt fitted (drains away excess fluid from the brain) so the memory clinic consultant wrote in his notes that he could not drive for 6 months advised by the neurosurgeon. Six months never actually ends
He can hardly walk these days but occasionally will mention driving and going out (he lives in residential care now). On occasions I have had to show him the paper where it said driving could not happen.
I think we would have struggled ourselves with the driving had we not been able to 'blame ' the doctor. It is a really tricky area as it is your independence to go out when you like and do what you normally do has gone and not through your own choice either.
We had a slightly different journey 💗 as Dad had a shunt fitted (drains away excess fluid from the brain) so the memory clinic consultant wrote in his notes that he could not drive for 6 months advised by the neurosurgeon. Six months never actually ends
He can hardly walk these days but occasionally will mention driving and going out (he lives in residential care now). On occasions I have had to show him the paper where it said driving could not happen.
I think we would have struggled ourselves with the driving had we not been able to 'blame ' the doctor. It is a really tricky area as it is your independence to go out when you like and do what you normally do has gone and not through your own choice either.
Does your dad sleep so heavily that your mum can’t sneak them from under his pillow when he is asleep? Aren’t there times when he goes to the toilet during the night?
At the end of the day, it really doesn’t matter if your dad goes into a rage about not driving. What is important is that he doesn’t hurt someone and doesn’t land your mum in a bucketful of financial problems if he does.
Some body else had the same problem, and someone commented to let the air out of the car tires, or can you switch the keys for different ones, either that or you're going to have to have the confrontation and take them because he isn't fit for driving.
My husband was like that with keys still is but he did stop driving after he made a silly mistake and the other driver threatened to rip his lungs out. Is it possible to order a key from the garage if you have the paperwork. or let a tyre down so he cant drive it and ask for the keys to get the car fixed. Then see about selling the car
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