Yasuo Tabei, a vice director of the Kyoto-based public interest group, Alzheimer’s Association Japan. Many people say they are having great difficulty in getting elderly relatives suffering from dementia to stop driving. (Asahi Shimbun)
© Japan TodayVoices
in
Japan
quote of the day
Even if they ask their elderly relatives to stop driving, their requests are ignored. Especially, in areas where daily lives are difficult without a car, it is difficult for families to ask such a thi
©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.
8 Comments
Login to comment
SenseNotSoCommon
If you have Alzheimer's, you're not going to remember these requests, just the increasingly rare feeling of control and independence that you get from driving.
Can't doctors advise police to confiscate keys of patients who are a danger to other road users?
afanofjapan
Free public transport wont do anything for those in the countryside where there is maybe 2 buses a day, from a bus stop 2km from their house. I see this issue happening with my wife's parents; i just wish self driving cars would hurry up and become a reality
GW
Thank goodness my MIL doesn't drive, although she is now starting to drive us all crazy, very stubborn & starting to forget things.... not going to be easy
There is clearly a need to be able to cancel drivers licenses but society is so far somewhat reluctant to start this
wanderlust
The UK has a mechanism for GPs to report patients who are potentially dangerous or unsafe drivers with medical disabilities and have their licence revoked, but do not do it very often; whilst families, who are much more aware of them poor driving have little recourse.
In our family of both parents with Alzheimers' disease; we just hid our father's car keys and locked the car in a garage, as well as removing his credit cards to safe custody! After a few weeks of no driving and not seeing his car, he just accepted it.
frenchosa
My mother in America after hitting the hospital brick wall while failing to brake, got her license taken away. She has been struggling with diabetes and has had some pretty bad highs and lows. She is also struggling with depression and alcohol for the past three years She is only 77, but she shouldn't be driving. She has been trying to get her license reinstated... The scary thing is on her good days,, she seems very normal and with it. So on one of those good days she could easily convince the registry of motor vehicles... which scares me because she has so many bad days.
MsDelicious
Um, take away the keys. Solved.
presto345
This headline creates the wrong impression. It's elderly people with health issues that disqualifies them from driving who should be forced to turn in their driving permits. This being enacted by annual health and competence checks from the age of 75, for example, overseen and enforced by the government. Request and fliers won't cut it.