Compromises around driving are a great idea, especially if your senior can drive in certain circumstances but not in others. The problem can come in when your senior’s situation changes or when she’s not honoring the compromises you agreed to together.
Make Sure You Have the Information You Need
You tried the compromises and that didn’t work. So now you need to move to the next step, but before you do you have to collect all your information. What exactly isn’t working for your senior? If she’s just determined to drive, that’s one thing. If she honestly believes that she’s safe behind the wheel, that may be a completely different argument.
Ask Around and Get Other Opinions
Who else has noticed that your senior is having trouble with driving? It’s a good idea to get some anecdotal evidence from them. Ask them what they’ve seen and compile that information with what you already know. If they’re willing to own up to what they’ve seen, it might help her to hear directly from them why they’re concerned about her driving.
Ensure She’s Got Easy Access to Transportation
If one of your compromises was that your senior needs to be mobile, but not behind the wheel, she needs to have super easy access to alternative forms of transportation. That might mean hiring elder care providers who help your senior with other tasks and are ready at a moment’s notice so that they can drive when she’s ready to go somewhere. Making this as fast and as easy for your senior to implement as possible is crucial.
Figure out What to Do with the Vehicle Itself
You might be at a stage where you need to decide what to do with the vehicle itself. Some seniors who can still see their car or who know it’s a perfectly functioning vehicle just won’t let go of the idea of continuing to drive, no matter what. So that might lead you to some fairly final solutions, namely disabling the car or even selling it to someone else who can use it. There might be some final grief involved in this decision because it’s the last, definite step that lets your senior know she really can’t drive anymore.
Your senior has a lot invested in being able to drive. There’s the independence factor as well as the various pieces of her identity and her self-esteem that benefit from being able to drive. But if it’s no longer safe for her to drive, she needs to finally admit that.
If you or an aging loved-one are considering hiring a Caregiver in Buckeye, AZ, please contact the caring staff at Home Care Resources at (602) 443-4700
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