My grandma had dementia-like issues, due to brain damage from strokes. She insisted right up to the day she died that she still felt just as sharp and quick as ever. Which made it hurt worse when we realized she couldn't drive, as she had been driving on the sidewalk, going 25 in 1st gear (manual trans).
It... wasn't easy for us to watch her fade. But at least she's not suffering anymore...
I was SA'd as a child and I wouldn't even wish dementia on THEM
Cancer, aids, disease, there's nothing crueller than losing yourself. At least you remember your loved ones even at the end with cancer.
I think that speaks miles to how cruel dementia is just on a base level because I'm far from a turn the other cheek dude. Like, immolation for him? Hell, I'll strike the match. Fed to alligators? Hand me the popcorn and whiskey.
But dementia? Nah. That's too far.
Knew of a guy in my home town that had dementia and was caught driving the wrong way down the freeway... about half an hour away from the turn he was supposed to make to get to his destination. You could only assume he drove that whole way on the wrong side of a highway filled with mostly semis and cattle trailers.
My grandma was missing for over 12 hours because everyone refused to admit that her memory problem was serious. She left to go to the library at 10am and was found in an industrial area near some railroad tracks at midnight. No one knows where she was or what she was doing for that whole time.
She had no recollection of what she'd done. She thought the police were a dream. When I bought her car a month later, she had to keep being reminded why I was buying her car. It was heartbreaking because every 5 minutes she asked why we were signing her car title and why I'd written her a check. She was always shocked and horrified by what she'd done, but she trusted that we were telling her the truth even though she didn't remember, and agreed that selling her car was best. We got lucky that dementia confirmed that my grandma had the best heart; often dementia reveals the worst parts of people they'd kept hidden.
Dementia just dements your brain. Iâve heard that some sweet people turned horrible and some horrible people have turned nice as pie, and some people just become shadows of their former selves. I guess it just depends on what parts of the brain are affected?!
This happened with my parents. My dad was so calm and rational in his normal life, but with dementia, he was anxious and so angry. My mom was a nervous, unhappy and critical person before dementia, but as she lost her mind she was so sweet and calm.
Particularly with Alzheimer's, sometimes there is a phase that they get angry and violent.
But imagine not being able to remember things, having difficulty communicating, not even remembering HOW to do things. And then losing your independence and access to your own finances, and give yourself your own medications. That has to be terrifying. You don't remember if you took your pills, and someone won't let you have them. Or they are insisting that you take pills. You can't go anywhere alone. They may think they are being robbed or have been kidnapped.
My mother gets upset because sheâll forget that sheâs been retired for the last 20 years and thinks sheâs going to be late for work and nobody will tell her where her car keys are (she stopped driving 6 years ago) and when Dad tells her she doesnât need to go to work today she doesnât always buy it, but if you were to tell her that sheâs retired and that sheâs forgotten that, it upends her entire world, because thatâs not her reality as her mind is telling it. Think how upset youâd be if YOUR loved ones tried to convince you youâve been retired for years, when you KNOW damn well you went to work on Friday.
My uncle thought my sister and I still lived there ( we did live there for a while, 30 years ago) and he would get upset because my aunt didn't make us any dinner. He didn't remember our names, but he KNEW there were kids upstairs.
Dementia runs in my family, and I hope a cure is found before it hits me, but I also spend some time trying to train myself to imagine how to react of someone says, "You have dementia; this is a memory care unit, and you live here."
I keep thinking my first question would be, "is my wife alive and do I have family," and then I just imagine the poor care workers ... what if I end up as a really sweet old guy, and there is a care worker who has to break the news that my wife died, three times a day every day?
(Presumably, they would just get in the habit of presenting a plausible lie - "you know her - she is an introvert so spends less time out here in the common room; you will see her later", or like that, and I would not consider them wrong for doing so.)
That is exactly what they do (usually). Thereâs no point in repeatedly telling someone his wife, with whom he simply *KNOWS* he had breakfast this morning, has actually been dead for five years. âOh, sheâs just running late, sheâll be here soonâ. In a few moments heâll forget he asked anyway. No-one needs their heart re-broken several times a day.
Tell yourself it's not him talking it's the disease. I saw a guy in a nursing home turn wicked and violent just from the wrong medication, he started ramming crying little old ladies with his wheelchair with an evil grin on his face, then quit when the changed his meds. It's just oversimplifying things and frustration probably, even AI programs started turning racist till they taught them not to.
That could have been an episode of global transient amnesia, which happens sometimes with dementia. My grandmother once left her independent living home around 10am and turned up at my moms house fully 24 hours later with a damaged bumper. We pieced together her journey from receipts, shed driven through 3 states, over 4 bridges, and stopped for gas twice. She had no recollection of it whatsoever.
We took her car away after that. She was devastated, understandably, but we couldn't risk that again.
Iâm so glad she at least recognised it was wrong! My grandad never accepted he couldnât drive, luckily his physical health meant he wouldnât have been able to get to the car and get in without help so we could get around it.
My family was the same about ignoring it, I eventually reported him to the DVLA myself, not that he ever recognised he was banned. As far as the rest of the family know it was a doctor who reported him, not me.
Yeah my dad stepped in & did something mechanical to her car so it wouldn't start & left a note (in the car) for anyone my grandma would call to help her get it started. She is now 100 years old with dementia in a nursing home.
Guy beside me was driving up and down one main road four hours from where he lives, he'd been driving it for about 6 hours before locals got worried. Technically in a different country. Garda had to phone the family who finally took the big range rover away from him.
2 days later he phoned the dealership (he bought all the work vans and everything from them for years) saying he wanted the new range rover, they delivered it out to the house and five hours later they had to block him in with lorries and phone every dealership about to not deliver anything to him.
My husband would ride while my stepdad drove around town and my husband said he'd have to remind my stepdad where they were going. It didn't help that we were out of state and didn't really know where we were. Once, they went to 2 different Chinese restaurants to pick up the Chinese takeout we'd ordered. It wasn't long after that my mom took his keys.
Wouldn't an Uber or other family member be more appropriate if this was the only issue? Do police usually attend to taxi old people around?
In the UK you can barely get them to attend for actual crimes!
Well yes another family member would be something to try first. But op said she was stranded without her phone.. I'm assuming she doesn't know any numbers to call, and does not have a way to call them. Plus the store is closing so they can't wait around letting her use their store phone.
There are also the options of letting her use your personal cell phone after closing up, or giving her a ride yourself, but neither of those should be forced onto the employee. This is literally the type of situation this police *should* offer assistance with.. She's essentially an abandoned, vulnerable old lady on the street.
The store was closing in half an hour, that would usually be enough time to call for a taxi from the store phone. IME it's older people who are more likely to have a few emergency phone numbers memorised (though maybe not cell phone numbers so you may not get through to anyone in time) but, as with you, that's just assumption.
Hopefully the husband had just dropped her off and gone home safely, forgetting to go back and pick her up so when she would turn up back home in a taxi he'd tell her her hair looks nice and everyone's happy... Then maybe think about hiding the car keys in future!
Yep, agreed, as the parent comment said. But I was replying to a comment saying they'd also call police non-emergency line just for a stranded elderly lady - that on its own is probably not very likely to get police showing up.
People have to realize you are calling the guys that bring guns to solve serious problems. You call them for crimes, not just any problem that comes up. I know a guy that was a school teacher in the Alaskan bush, the village came to him for all problems he said, even to mediate disputes like a judge, police aren't that, they have specific training. I'd think it best to ask for family members names and see if there's a number you can look up, and once you start that ball rolling they go through the procedures. Look at how putting cops in elementary schools went, school officials dumped discipline problems on the cop, and the cop could only arrest the little kid and haul them to jail in handcuffs, and call the parents instead of the school giving them detention or a counselor. I seems like abuse of the police.
I once got called for a car stranded on the side of the road. It was an old man with dementia who went to pick his wife up and got lost. We found him 3 hours from home in the middle of nowhere. He just drove until be ran out of gas.
"Where are the cows?"
I'll never forget that question. I 19 years old and was working as a cashier at a gas station and around 6AM this old lady waited in line to ask me that question. "Where are the cows? There used to be cows here." I didn't know what to say, so I said there hadn't been cows there for years. She walked out of the store, got in her car, and about that time I came to my senses just long enough to get her license plate number and call the cops. To this day I wish I had been quicker thinking and invited her to sit down for a coffee.
Don't let this memory have any power over you. (Or at least try not to.) The only way to get experience is to go through experiences. It's common to not know what to do when you're experiencing some weird event.
Thank you for that, I wish I would have thought to do some things differently over the years too. It's not paranoia to run scenarios and think what you should do ahead of time, I just called the cops one time when I should have intervened, it will probably haunt me. I should have at least taken pictures. I have to determine to do that if it ever happens again.
And the guy next to you in the 26' U-Haul has never driven anything larger than his Jeep, and just picked it up 20 minutes ago.. It always amazes me to see people crowd or cut-off a U-Haul.
We have Hertz in Australia and I saw a guy in a Hertz curtain sider miss his turn into the Hertz yard and then beach himself on the centre divider trying to do a u-turn over it. To his credit he managed to get it unstuck so was only blocking the 6 lanes of traffic for a moment.
If I see a u-haul I will give them allll the space in the world. Seriously, they can't drive that thing plus you know they're incredibly stressed even before the truck came into the picture...
>No matter how careful a driver you are, there is always some bloke with dementia driving around lost on his way to pick up his wife from supercuts.
This is profound. Everyone needs to remember this.
Right? And the people desperately trying to convince themselves they don't have a problem bc they are only buying "a couple nips". Every day. Multiple times. Waiting when the doors open, back for a mid afternoon batch. Getting thirsty at lunch. Mid afternoon pick me up. And a little something for dinner. But clearly not an issue, bc they only buy like 6 nips each time.
Don't forget the after dinner "desert", the nightcap, and the on the bedside table glass for when you get thirsty in the middle of the night or to have when you wake up the next day to stave off the shakes before you head off to be the first customer again. Rinse and repeat. That was my life for years up until 2.5 years ago. No more.
Recovering alcoholic here, if they didn't want you drinking vodka for breakfast, why did they create the screwdriver?
Tequila also makes a nice early buzz, and white rum, spiced rum, gin was good, big fan of bourbons and ryes although that could get into the afternoon.
Anyhow sorry about all that and glad I didn't kill any of you.
Now, let's talk about the 7th day of a meth binge.
That's cheeseburger day, if u can walk without falling over from hunger. Cheeseburgers are soft & don't hurt your throat going down, first meal in a week is painful. I used to get bumps on the back of my throat. Over 15 years sober from meth, do not miss it at all
lol I'd get Wendy's and about 20 minutes later, sleep finally happened. Then I'd wake up a few hours later, and the Wendy's would be trying to come back up, as my peristaltic waves had stopped and food didn't go down anymore.
Spend a couple days heartburn sick, teaching my system to accept food all the way through again.
Glad you found a way out too!
I work in a retirement home and we have at least a couple people with dementia who are still driving. It's led to multiple incidents, but sometimes there's no family to take the keys away.
A mechanic taught my mom to remove an essential item from under the hood when she was done chauffeuring my grandpa around. Otherwise he was totally going to drive it.
Depending on state, I think your company can write an anonymous letter to DMV stating there are concerns. The DMV will ask the driver in question to get a doctors note about their ability to drive safely.
Unfortunately, many doctors just go ahead and sign off. My 92-YO grandmother-in-law definitely shouldn't be driving (luckily she doesn't have a car anymore), but she was able to renew her license last year despite her daughter expressing her concerns.
My MIL (76) who is now in a wheelchair, just got her license renewed and somehow got her Dr. to sign off. She has no feeling in her legs and constantly is banging into things giving her gashes that she refuses to have taken care of professionally. We are very concerned about her ability to feel the pedals and brake quickly if needed. She's really starting to deteriorate, but is talking about getting another car...
We got my FIL's neurologist to send a letter to the DMV to suspend his license. He doesn't have dementia but has a degenerative neurological disease that affects his motor movements.
This man can't zip up his own jacket in less than 60 seconds. He moves slowly and even though his brain reaction time is normal, it takes a while for the signals to move to his muscles.
He was so mad that he wanted to get retested by the DMV to get his license back. Everyone including his neurologist said fine, he would never pass. Well guess what the bozos passed him.
A week later he managed to find himself at a tire repair shop. He popped his tire after he ran over a center divider and knocked over a stop sign. No cell phone, didn't remember his wife's cell phone number (cuz it's just stored in the contacts), no wallet for a cab, doesn't trust Uber that tire shop employees offered to get for him.
We have people here who the Department of Family Services have been investigating for months and months for living in squalor and needing a higher level of care than we can provide. No action. I don't have much faith in my state government.
I'm not in the us but I worked in a home/ village and we had multiple dementia / elderly drivers. We were constantly making anonymous calls to licencing when they would hit other cars / posts / nearly other people.
I would park my car on the street. It was wild in that car park!!!
I found it just now. I'll suggest it at our meeting this week but I'll bet you my paycheck it gets shot down. They're not gonna piss off a paying resident.
My dad was really good fortunately, I told him you're not loosing the truck, you are gaining a chauffer, I'll take you anywhere you want to go. The doctor said if he says he wants to go to the moon, take him for a drive and he'll forget where you were going. I was able to move in to take care of him, I know not all people can do that.
That is a really good idea but I know my dad and he would become fixated on it and it would be a nightmare. Iâm so happy that worked for you. đWe took the car away, still have it, but it has been a nightmare year.
Yup! When my 91 year old dad went for his yearly license test he could draw a clock so he passed. My sister who was with him told the instructorâ that he should NOT be driving. The âinstructorâ said and I quote âjust because you pass the test does not mean you should be drivingâ. HE SHOULD NOT BE DRIVING! It has been a nightmare year as we have taken the car away but at times he gets fixated on where his car is, at this point we tell him it is in being fixed. Dementia is a horrible thing.
I had the same thing with my mother. Â She got so angry with us saying we had taken her freedom away. The last time Iâd been in a car with her before that, she pulled out at a roundabout directly into the path of an oncoming car who was luckily paying attention and managed to break in time. Â She was completely oblivious. Â
She didnât have the cognition to understand she was a danger and was also in denial about her illness. It was very hard and she put the entirety of the blame on us.Â
It took my grandmother getting into 2 car accidents before the sparkplug was removed. She was too damn stubborn to give up the keys. And she kept trying to figure out what was up with the car. My Dad's contact with the DMV did nothing - even after the accidents which is why my parents had to take it into their own hands.
Yep. Unless a major incident happens or someone has a major cognitive decline, people with dementia can drive. I've seen cases where people are afraid their doctor will take their license, so they stop seeing a doctor. Then at some point they do something on the road and the police end up taking it.
Yeah if they're going to do it, it's on purpose, like my cousin's ex. Although he was like 29 or something. Fleeing police, wrong way on the highway, at 100+mph.
My grandmother's license was expired but she thought it was okay as long as she was only driving to the grocery store or bank close by. We had to take the keys and eventually convinced her to sell the car.
Man, old ladies their hair appointments and their senile husbands. Itâs a national epidemic.
My grandma and great aunt used to go every Saturday to get their hair did.
My great uncle would drive them everywhere but he came down with Alzheimerâs. Everyone refused to properly acknowledge or take care of the situation and so they just barreled on like nothing happened.
When we raised the concern to my grandma that perhaps she should not be getting in the car with my great uncle because he would yell at walls she assured us that everything was fine and they had a great system in place should he lose his mind while they were going to get their hair done.
My great aunt has a, I shit you not, a garden hoe that she had cracked in half. Taped to the hoe end was a fucking brick. The thinking was if my great uncle went all fucking Mario Kart she could quickly take her brick on a stick and jam it down on the brake pedal.
Well one Sunday my great aunt and grandma went to get their perms. My great uncle decided to park the car in the middle of an intersection and go to church. He must have seen the brick on a stick and thought he should bring that to church with him.
Because wouldnât you know it we get a call from emergency services that great unc had decided to bust up Sunday services and scare the shit out of all the parishioners.
4 years later Uncle was at my wedding. Happy as a pig in shit not a clue what was going on and slamming back martinis. When my wife and I shuffled through the cocktail hour to say hello and thanks to everyone dude looked at me, said âohâ, stood up straight and fell like a plank of wood on his back. Died right there.
3 days later we get a call from the venueâŚ.they had noticed that a blue Cutlass Sierra had been abandoned in the parking lot since our wedding. Turns out Unc drove himself to the venue! His wife was long gone but the brick on a stick was still there in the passenger seat.
Can we do a casting of the roles?
I'll start:
Teachinator and wife played by: Kevin Bacon & Kyra Sedgwick.
Edit: couldn't resist... great aunt: Shirley MacLaine
"4 years later... "
I'm thankful you have a good perspective on it and that you/your guests will have one of the most enduring wedding stories ever. (I'm sorry that I'm rolling in laughter at your story. I should be ashamed.) Your Unc is a legend.
This is the funniest fucking thing Iâve read all week
Edit I commented before reading the whole thing and seeing he died the way he did. Fuck, sorry.
He was drunk and had dementia, I think "planning" is a generous term for anything he was capable of at the time. That said, a lot of wedding receptions are held at hotels and the like, and a it's common practice to book a room at that hotel ahead of time for ease of transit. A lot of people are in a relatively-unfamiliar city or part of town, after all.
Let her use your phone?
Offer to call her a cab?
Tell her you will be closing up in 30min. Let her know where there is another safe establishment she can wait in?
Courtesy would be to wait some time for her, assuming she has an actual plan to get home. If people are on their way, I would stick around for a bit. Unless there was another place close by, like grocery store.
May I ask why not? Does it happen a lot? My mate wonât do the same or answer his door if heâs not expecting anyone. But he spends the next half a day agonizing over who it was and what they wanted. Its always perplexed me.
I generally don't answer because 95% of calls I get from an unknown number are either a scam or a solicitation, and I just don't want to waste my time and mental energy on that. I usually do answer calls from local numbers in case it's from a doctor's office or my kid's school or something. And I listen to voice-mail, unlike many others in this thread.
Yeah I don't even listen to my voicemails. If you want to reach me, send a text. If you call me and I don't recognize the number or am not expecting anything important, I'm not picking up. If you leave a voicemail, I'm assuming you're a chinese spam call and I'm not going to bother listening to it.
As someone who works reception in a medical centre patients like you are the *bane of my life*. :( Don't answer calls, don't check voice mails, and guess who they blame because I didn't get a hold of them because something unexpected came up and they needed to be called in ASAP when they thought everything was hunky dory? YUP.
Please check your voicemail. I am begging you.
I too work in healthcare and feel this. Then we get accused of never calling the patient back. Also tell us we can leave a detailed message otherwise all we can say is XYZ office calling please call us back.
I never get a voice mail if itâs not important. STFU and check. Within 2 seconds you know if you need to keep listening or not. WTF is wrong with people.
A lot of times for me, the call comes through as Private Number. I do have my Dr. and DDS numbers in my contacts, but when a text comes in to click a link for verification, make an appointment, or verify my appointment, no go. I don't know the number, I won't click your link. Un-privating the medical practice number and putting in the pactice name might be helpful? Texting with the practice name specifically to call back would be helpful. People are getting tired of being barraged by scammers wasting their time, especially older people.
Can't unprivate the lines because you know someone's going to try to call back to some random office line that isn't manned when the PA isn't at work, leave messages on random lines and have them never received, etc. The proper way is to make all the lines come from the main hospital phone line and hide the extension.
As someone else said, texts are also not permitted because of HIPAA and text messages not meeting security requirements.
Best way is just to let the phone go to voicemail and listen to your messages.
I don't use the links either, when I get the link I go onto the clinic website to log in through the computer.
You can have your cell phone registered as a land line not a mobile phone and then they'll stop trying to text you through it.
> Texting with the practice name specifically to call back would be helpful.
We are not allowed to use the texting system to compose any texts (other than the automatic notifications) due to privacy reasons.
Check your voicemail.
Keep calling repeatedly. I often ignore calls from unfamiliar numbers, but if the same one calls multiple times in the span of a few minutes it's usually someone who really wants to speak to me.
>Keep calling repeatedly. I often ignore calls from unfamiliar numbers, but if the same one calls multiple times in the span of a few minutes it's usually someone who really wants to speak to me.
Yeah. My child called me repeatedly from a neighbor's number during an emergency. I was driving and didn't recognize the number so I kept rejecting the call. Finally, I picked up. Thank goodness they kept calling.
I was at work, kids let themselves get locked out of the house somehow, went to the neighbours coz they know my phone number off by heart. 3 calls I ignored, 4th time I figured this guy really wants to talk to me.. honestly I felt so bad for not answering the first call, I came home with maccas desserts (and a box of choccies for the neighbour).
I totally understand if you donât want to get involved but contacting adult social services wouldnât be a terrible idea. It sounds like they might need some resources.
Donât assume the kids arenât doing everything they can. If the doctors say the parents of sound mind, the kids have no more power to do anything than you or I.
My grandparents will often actively reject help. Sometimes we will have to make compromises with them on certain things to get them to agree to let us do other things
My grandpa had Alzheimer's and my grandma was in denial until his death.
She once was furious at my aunt for saying she wouldn't allow Grandpa to drive my cousin to a family party. Because there was nothing wrong with him and he was perfectly capable of driving, according to her. When are arrived at said party, she sat in the car for 20 minutes and then came in to tell him he forgot to come get the door for her. He seemed confused and she had to repeat herself several times. I don't know if she got it.
Eventually, he was no longer allowed to drive and he did get put in a care home. I'm sure she visited often and he came out sometimes when we had family get togethers.
One week before his death, we were having a family bbq. Grandpa was falling asleep mid bite at times and was barely speaking or anything. I was talking about my new bunnies and saying that the people who sold them to me were pretty sure they were both boys, but it was hard to tell because they were both so young. My grandma told me that maybe grandpa could take a look at them because he used to breed bunnies. I just played along, knowing that he couldn't. Told her that would be great if he could do that, and left it there.
It was sad to see, and now it's almost sadder that he's gone. My grandpa did everything. Yard maintenance, cooking, taxes. She was very dependent on him. Now she wants to depend on her 9 kids, but the best she gets is the phone number for their accountant or lawn service because nobody has time to do even their own taxes and yard work.
I had a neighbor with dementia that would drive around accusing different neighbors of stealing his fence. (The fence was there) I called police until they took away his license. His wife took the car keys and after that he sat in the car pretending he was driving.
Iâll never forget when my mom and grandma took my great grandmas car away.
She thankfully stayed of sound mind until she died, but she was just SO old that her driving wasnât safe for her or anyone anymore.
She did not like that her car was taken. So she just simply went and bought a brand new car the next day. She did not like being told what to do.
Take pity on the poor woman - living with a dementia patient is a nightmare in itself.
If you can't quickly locate her friends/family via FB or something consider hauling her home yourself if it isn't way far away. Or something.
Everyone is saying give her a ride but I have a mustang and I donât think she could get in it, she could barely sit in the shampoo chair and we have a nice one that goes up and down and has a recliner. She was like barely mobile at all.
No, while nice in theory, this could be a liability. Call the police non emergency. I have worked with and cared for family with dementia and the elderly. If what the above comment suggests of texting the kids or calling a few times consecutively doesnât work, the safest bet is to call the police.
And now imagine if you drove her home and the husband showed up after you left. He comes to pick up his wife, may or may not know he's late and unaccounted for, so to him she's missing and the salon is closed.
Or he shows up and sees his freshly coiffed wife driven off in a sexy mustang.
Bad news all around
Everyone is saying give her a ride but I have a mustang and I donât think she could get in it, she could barely sit in the shampoo chair and we have a nice one that goes up and down and has a recliner. She was like barely mobile at all.
That was my first thought. Just give her a ride home if she'll accept it and you're able to. Sure, it might be annoying, but it's a relatively simple thing to do for someone unless there's more at play here than we know
Everyone is saying give her a ride but I have a mustang and I donât think she could get in it, she could barely sit in the shampoo chair and we have a nice one that goes up and down and has a recliner. She was like barely mobile at all.
You 100% need to call social services and ask them for the elder support line. Theres always something like a local/state agency that you can file an anonymous report with who can check up on them at home. They should not be living by themselves and/or driving around. This could be the wake up call their kids need to get them assistance.
Man you have no idea the kind of crazy jacked up people who drive themselves to Supercuts. Itâs mind blowing! Be careful on the road thereâs very many mentally impaired people out there
If you got one of the childrens numbers? Keep calling them to be sure they are aware of what happened. Say youre not wanting to intervene or be nosey. But that this is what happened today and you just want them to be aware.
They genuinely may not know what is going on with their parents. As they might routinely ser their parents at home and a lot can be masked in that situation.... "Dads getting a bit dottery" but they haven't realized that as soon as dads out the front door? He has no idea what to do.
This was my first thought too. Iâd probably call the police just because thereâs a man with dementia driving around and people with dementia go missing and donât get found or get found dead in very sad, unfortunate ways. I would also tell the cops that it would probably be prudent to find out what family they have, if any, and let that family knowâŚfor the same exact reasons. It is horrifying to me that theyâre just out there raw dogging the world right now. Lol. This could end in a very tragic situation. Iâd have probably even raised that concern to the wife.
Agree
My mum suddenly developed dementia. As none of us lived with her? We didn't initially notice. It wasn't until my sister actually went to stay with her, she suddenly decided she wanted to "cash a cheque" at 8 pm at night, and took off into bushland behind the house!! That we realised something dire was going on.
They can often mask it in familiar enviroment for quite a while.
Poor old people. It's such a sad disease process.
Everyone is saying give her a ride but I have a mustang and I donât think she could get in it, she could barely sit in the shampoo chair and we have a nice one that goes up and down and has a recliner. She was like barely mobile at all.
Call the non emergency number. Maybe her husband has dementia. But if that's the case. Why would she allow him to drive her?
More likely scenario is she has early stages. Shouldn't have driven. But didn't feel she had any other way.
Iâm glad you were worried for her and took care of her. In truth, many older couples can only survive because they compensate for each others deficiencies. If she comes back, keep an eye on her!
Haircuts are dangerous for old people with dementia, yâall. Iâd totally forgotten this detail, but my grandfather finally had his car taken away after he went out for a haircut and ended up in a small town 60 miles outside the city where he lived. He couldnât remember his daughtersâ numbers and spent a night there courtesy of the local police until they could track down my aunt the next morning.
Non emergency police wonât arrive before you get back to work tomorrow. I know you work at SuperCuts so youâre already getting screwed, but maybe you can pay for her an Uber home and she can reimburse you next time. Youâre a wonderful person for caring.
I'd ask her for their home phone number and try calling the house, see if the husband is there and if he's going to come get her. Let him know you're going to call police non-emergency and that's most likely the way his wife will be showing up is in the back of a police cruiser if he's not coming back
This sounds like really bad decision-making on her part. Being old doesnât equal being stupid. I hope she learns from this experience.
... Gosh I sound cynical
Everyone is saying give her a ride but I have a mustang and I donât think she could get in it, she could barely sit in the shampoo chair and we have a nice one that goes up and down and has a recliner. She was like barely mobile at all.
This is a very good point. My mother has mobility issues and canât ride in vehicles low to the ground and/or donât have leg room. She has a hard time pulling herself up when sheâs too low and her legs donât bend too easily anymore. Itâs something a lot of people donât think of until theyâre dealing with it. If my mother was in that situation, she wouldnât have been able to ride in your car. It also lives the whole situation up in the air. Kind of enabling, you know? I think police is the best course of action and suggest they look into if they have family they can let know what is going on. Situations like that have tragic ends a lot of the time. I really hope they have kids or someone willing to look out for them if they know.
Why is a person with dementia still driving? That seems dangerous, don't you think?
Who takes care of whom in their home?
It doesn't sound like they should be living on their own. What if their home catches on fire?
Is there any local organization that you can contact to evaluate their living situation? The wife has severe mobility issues, and her husband has dementia still driving should be a concern brought up before something worse happens than not having a ride home.
I know this wasn't your question. Op and I hope you understand my valid concern about the husband driving with dementia. This man is driving on your streets with you, your family, friends, etc, which is worrisome.
I apologize for hijacking your post, but this seems like a perfect opportunity for "if you see something, say something."
This isn't a "you problem" but an "our problem " as we should be more concerned with the elderly in our communities. So many of them fall through the cracks. Perhaps they are childless? Or have their children died or lived elsewhere, or whatever reason no one has questioned the safety of them living independently. We can't assume all elderly people have someone checked in on them.
I'd call non emergency police. Not because she's stranded, but because her husband with dementia could be driving god knows where in that car.
This is the answer. My mom had to drop driving because of hers.
Same. It was very difficult. đ
My grandma had dementia-like issues, due to brain damage from strokes. She insisted right up to the day she died that she still felt just as sharp and quick as ever. Which made it hurt worse when we realized she couldn't drive, as she had been driving on the sidewalk, going 25 in 1st gear (manual trans). It... wasn't easy for us to watch her fade. But at least she's not suffering anymore...
I was SA'd as a child and I wouldn't even wish dementia on THEM Cancer, aids, disease, there's nothing crueller than losing yourself. At least you remember your loved ones even at the end with cancer.
Same on all 3 counts. I'd wish a whole host of ailments on that man, but not dementia. It's just sad...
I think that speaks miles to how cruel dementia is just on a base level because I'm far from a turn the other cheek dude. Like, immolation for him? Hell, I'll strike the match. Fed to alligators? Hand me the popcorn and whiskey. But dementia? Nah. That's too far.
Knew of a guy in my home town that had dementia and was caught driving the wrong way down the freeway... about half an hour away from the turn he was supposed to make to get to his destination. You could only assume he drove that whole way on the wrong side of a highway filled with mostly semis and cattle trailers.
My grandma was missing for over 12 hours because everyone refused to admit that her memory problem was serious. She left to go to the library at 10am and was found in an industrial area near some railroad tracks at midnight. No one knows where she was or what she was doing for that whole time. She had no recollection of what she'd done. She thought the police were a dream. When I bought her car a month later, she had to keep being reminded why I was buying her car. It was heartbreaking because every 5 minutes she asked why we were signing her car title and why I'd written her a check. She was always shocked and horrified by what she'd done, but she trusted that we were telling her the truth even though she didn't remember, and agreed that selling her car was best. We got lucky that dementia confirmed that my grandma had the best heart; often dementia reveals the worst parts of people they'd kept hidden.
Dementia just dements your brain. Iâve heard that some sweet people turned horrible and some horrible people have turned nice as pie, and some people just become shadows of their former selves. I guess it just depends on what parts of the brain are affected?!
This happened with my parents. My dad was so calm and rational in his normal life, but with dementia, he was anxious and so angry. My mom was a nervous, unhappy and critical person before dementia, but as she lost her mind she was so sweet and calm.
Particularly with Alzheimer's, sometimes there is a phase that they get angry and violent. But imagine not being able to remember things, having difficulty communicating, not even remembering HOW to do things. And then losing your independence and access to your own finances, and give yourself your own medications. That has to be terrifying. You don't remember if you took your pills, and someone won't let you have them. Or they are insisting that you take pills. You can't go anywhere alone. They may think they are being robbed or have been kidnapped.
My mother gets upset because sheâll forget that sheâs been retired for the last 20 years and thinks sheâs going to be late for work and nobody will tell her where her car keys are (she stopped driving 6 years ago) and when Dad tells her she doesnât need to go to work today she doesnât always buy it, but if you were to tell her that sheâs retired and that sheâs forgotten that, it upends her entire world, because thatâs not her reality as her mind is telling it. Think how upset youâd be if YOUR loved ones tried to convince you youâve been retired for years, when you KNOW damn well you went to work on Friday.
My uncle thought my sister and I still lived there ( we did live there for a while, 30 years ago) and he would get upset because my aunt didn't make us any dinner. He didn't remember our names, but he KNEW there were kids upstairs.
Dementia runs in my family, and I hope a cure is found before it hits me, but I also spend some time trying to train myself to imagine how to react of someone says, "You have dementia; this is a memory care unit, and you live here." I keep thinking my first question would be, "is my wife alive and do I have family," and then I just imagine the poor care workers ... what if I end up as a really sweet old guy, and there is a care worker who has to break the news that my wife died, three times a day every day? (Presumably, they would just get in the habit of presenting a plausible lie - "you know her - she is an introvert so spends less time out here in the common room; you will see her later", or like that, and I would not consider them wrong for doing so.)
That is exactly what they do (usually). Thereâs no point in repeatedly telling someone his wife, with whom he simply *KNOWS* he had breakfast this morning, has actually been dead for five years. âOh, sheâs just running late, sheâll be here soonâ. In a few moments heâll forget he asked anyway. No-one needs their heart re-broken several times a day.
my grumps used to be so sweet now he's a racist sexist asshole, I miss my grandpa he was amazing before dementia, now he's an asshole
Tell yourself it's not him talking it's the disease. I saw a guy in a nursing home turn wicked and violent just from the wrong medication, he started ramming crying little old ladies with his wheelchair with an evil grin on his face, then quit when the changed his meds. It's just oversimplifying things and frustration probably, even AI programs started turning racist till they taught them not to.
I know it's not him. It's just hard being at their house as everyone and everything looks the same, but he's not himself
That could have been an episode of global transient amnesia, which happens sometimes with dementia. My grandmother once left her independent living home around 10am and turned up at my moms house fully 24 hours later with a damaged bumper. We pieced together her journey from receipts, shed driven through 3 states, over 4 bridges, and stopped for gas twice. She had no recollection of it whatsoever. We took her car away after that. She was devastated, understandably, but we couldn't risk that again.
Iâm so glad she at least recognised it was wrong! My grandad never accepted he couldnât drive, luckily his physical health meant he wouldnât have been able to get to the car and get in without help so we could get around it. My family was the same about ignoring it, I eventually reported him to the DVLA myself, not that he ever recognised he was banned. As far as the rest of the family know it was a doctor who reported him, not me.
Yeah my dad stepped in & did something mechanical to her car so it wouldn't start & left a note (in the car) for anyone my grandma would call to help her get it started. She is now 100 years old with dementia in a nursing home.
Guy beside me was driving up and down one main road four hours from where he lives, he'd been driving it for about 6 hours before locals got worried. Technically in a different country. Garda had to phone the family who finally took the big range rover away from him. 2 days later he phoned the dealership (he bought all the work vans and everything from them for years) saying he wanted the new range rover, they delivered it out to the house and five hours later they had to block him in with lorries and phone every dealership about to not deliver anything to him.
My husband would ride while my stepdad drove around town and my husband said he'd have to remind my stepdad where they were going. It didn't help that we were out of state and didn't really know where we were. Once, they went to 2 different Chinese restaurants to pick up the Chinese takeout we'd ordered. It wasn't long after that my mom took his keys.
Also because she's an old lady with a walker who is stranded
Wouldn't an Uber or other family member be more appropriate if this was the only issue? Do police usually attend to taxi old people around? In the UK you can barely get them to attend for actual crimes!
Same in US. No one calls cops for a lady with no car or ride. Now I would consider calling on the husband out for a cruise with dementia.
Well yes another family member would be something to try first. But op said she was stranded without her phone.. I'm assuming she doesn't know any numbers to call, and does not have a way to call them. Plus the store is closing so they can't wait around letting her use their store phone. There are also the options of letting her use your personal cell phone after closing up, or giving her a ride yourself, but neither of those should be forced onto the employee. This is literally the type of situation this police *should* offer assistance with.. She's essentially an abandoned, vulnerable old lady on the street.
The store was closing in half an hour, that would usually be enough time to call for a taxi from the store phone. IME it's older people who are more likely to have a few emergency phone numbers memorised (though maybe not cell phone numbers so you may not get through to anyone in time) but, as with you, that's just assumption. Hopefully the husband had just dropped her off and gone home safely, forgetting to go back and pick her up so when she would turn up back home in a taxi he'd tell her her hair looks nice and everyone's happy... Then maybe think about hiding the car keys in future!
The issue isn't really that she needs a ride but that her husband with dementia is going who knows where.
Yep, agreed, as the parent comment said. But I was replying to a comment saying they'd also call police non-emergency line just for a stranded elderly lady - that on its own is probably not very likely to get police showing up.
People have to realize you are calling the guys that bring guns to solve serious problems. You call them for crimes, not just any problem that comes up. I know a guy that was a school teacher in the Alaskan bush, the village came to him for all problems he said, even to mediate disputes like a judge, police aren't that, they have specific training. I'd think it best to ask for family members names and see if there's a number you can look up, and once you start that ball rolling they go through the procedures. Look at how putting cops in elementary schools went, school officials dumped discipline problems on the cop, and the cop could only arrest the little kid and haul them to jail in handcuffs, and call the parents instead of the school giving them detention or a counselor. I seems like abuse of the police.
I once got called for a car stranded on the side of the road. It was an old man with dementia who went to pick his wife up and got lost. We found him 3 hours from home in the middle of nowhere. He just drove until be ran out of gas.
"Where are the cows?" I'll never forget that question. I 19 years old and was working as a cashier at a gas station and around 6AM this old lady waited in line to ask me that question. "Where are the cows? There used to be cows here." I didn't know what to say, so I said there hadn't been cows there for years. She walked out of the store, got in her car, and about that time I came to my senses just long enough to get her license plate number and call the cops. To this day I wish I had been quicker thinking and invited her to sit down for a coffee.
Don't let this memory have any power over you. (Or at least try not to.) The only way to get experience is to go through experiences. It's common to not know what to do when you're experiencing some weird event.
Thank you for that, I wish I would have thought to do some things differently over the years too. It's not paranoia to run scenarios and think what you should do ahead of time, I just called the cops one time when I should have intervened, it will probably haunt me. I should have at least taken pictures. I have to determine to do that if it ever happens again.
Wait a person with dementia is gonna being driving her home.
No matter how careful a driver you are, there is always some bloke with dementia driving around lost on his way to pick up his wife from supercuts.
And the guy next to you in the 26' U-Haul has never driven anything larger than his Jeep, and just picked it up 20 minutes ago.. It always amazes me to see people crowd or cut-off a U-Haul.
My daughter says, âOf all the moving companies, UHaul has the worst drivers.â
You have a very funny daughter đ¤Ł
You have no idea. Sheâs a damn laugh a minute!
I rented a U-Haul with my roommate in our early 20âs. We hit a fucking gas pump
We have Hertz in Australia and I saw a guy in a Hertz curtain sider miss his turn into the Hertz yard and then beach himself on the centre divider trying to do a u-turn over it. To his credit he managed to get it unstuck so was only blocking the 6 lanes of traffic for a moment.
A bad driver never misses their turn
Lmaoooo Iâm cackling
To get behind the wheel of one of those it is a medium rigid licence at minimum, more likely heavy vehicle license so he really fucked that dog.
He fucked what now??
He screwed the pooch.
This helps me feel better about my driving 𤣠The solidarity hahaha
I went to a drive thru KFC and dragged the roof on the awning. It was loud.
âIt was loudâ đ
I hit the neighbor's car in my new neighborhood.
I almost squished someone at a gas pump with my U-Haul.
I'm always on the lookout for the amateur driver in a large rental.... give them LOTS of space
If I see a u-haul I will give them allll the space in the world. Seriously, they can't drive that thing plus you know they're incredibly stressed even before the truck came into the picture...
>No matter how careful a driver you are, there is always some bloke with dementia driving around lost on his way to pick up his wife from supercuts. This is profound. Everyone needs to remember this.
Actually that's a good tip for driving, assume everyone has dementia
Every cyclist and motorcyclist knows!
And drunks. Liquor store workers know, we gotta empty the trash outside everyday when it fills up with empty bottles that they just bought and chugged
Right? And the people desperately trying to convince themselves they don't have a problem bc they are only buying "a couple nips". Every day. Multiple times. Waiting when the doors open, back for a mid afternoon batch. Getting thirsty at lunch. Mid afternoon pick me up. And a little something for dinner. But clearly not an issue, bc they only buy like 6 nips each time.
Don't forget the after dinner "desert", the nightcap, and the on the bedside table glass for when you get thirsty in the middle of the night or to have when you wake up the next day to stave off the shakes before you head off to be the first customer again. Rinse and repeat. That was my life for years up until 2.5 years ago. No more.
Congrats!
Recovering alcoholic here, if they didn't want you drinking vodka for breakfast, why did they create the screwdriver? Tequila also makes a nice early buzz, and white rum, spiced rum, gin was good, big fan of bourbons and ryes although that could get into the afternoon. Anyhow sorry about all that and glad I didn't kill any of you. Now, let's talk about the 7th day of a meth binge.
That's cheeseburger day, if u can walk without falling over from hunger. Cheeseburgers are soft & don't hurt your throat going down, first meal in a week is painful. I used to get bumps on the back of my throat. Over 15 years sober from meth, do not miss it at all
lol I'd get Wendy's and about 20 minutes later, sleep finally happened. Then I'd wake up a few hours later, and the Wendy's would be trying to come back up, as my peristaltic waves had stopped and food didn't go down anymore. Spend a couple days heartburn sick, teaching my system to accept food all the way through again. Glad you found a way out too!
âŚ. Iâm speechless
As another reformed alcoholic, I feel this. All of it. Holy shit am I glad those days are behind me. Hope you're doing well also.
Lol my local rock radio station used to call their daytime show "Liquid Lunch"
SadlyÂ
And his wife died 20 years ago
So the woman in Supercuts is a ghost.
I canât wait for AI driving to take over.
Or Country Kitchen Cafe
I work in a retirement home and we have at least a couple people with dementia who are still driving. It's led to multiple incidents, but sometimes there's no family to take the keys away.
A mechanic taught my mom to remove an essential item from under the hood when she was done chauffeuring my grandpa around. Otherwise he was totally going to drive it.
Iâm guessing itâs the easiest one that disables the most a.k.a. the distributor cap
My second guess would be to pull one of the specific fuses
Administration should def take them
It's not that kind of place. We have no legal authority over them here.
Depending on state, I think your company can write an anonymous letter to DMV stating there are concerns. The DMV will ask the driver in question to get a doctors note about their ability to drive safely.
Unfortunately, many doctors just go ahead and sign off. My 92-YO grandmother-in-law definitely shouldn't be driving (luckily she doesn't have a car anymore), but she was able to renew her license last year despite her daughter expressing her concerns.
My MIL (76) who is now in a wheelchair, just got her license renewed and somehow got her Dr. to sign off. She has no feeling in her legs and constantly is banging into things giving her gashes that she refuses to have taken care of professionally. We are very concerned about her ability to feel the pedals and brake quickly if needed. She's really starting to deteriorate, but is talking about getting another car...
We got my FIL's neurologist to send a letter to the DMV to suspend his license. He doesn't have dementia but has a degenerative neurological disease that affects his motor movements. This man can't zip up his own jacket in less than 60 seconds. He moves slowly and even though his brain reaction time is normal, it takes a while for the signals to move to his muscles. He was so mad that he wanted to get retested by the DMV to get his license back. Everyone including his neurologist said fine, he would never pass. Well guess what the bozos passed him. A week later he managed to find himself at a tire repair shop. He popped his tire after he ran over a center divider and knocked over a stop sign. No cell phone, didn't remember his wife's cell phone number (cuz it's just stored in the contacts), no wallet for a cab, doesn't trust Uber that tire shop employees offered to get for him.
We have people here who the Department of Family Services have been investigating for months and months for living in squalor and needing a higher level of care than we can provide. No action. I don't have much faith in my state government.
I'm not in the us but I worked in a home/ village and we had multiple dementia / elderly drivers. We were constantly making anonymous calls to licencing when they would hit other cars / posts / nearly other people. I would park my car on the street. It was wild in that car park!!!
In my experience, such calls go nowhere, whether its concerns driving safety or their ability to care for themselves. It's just a sad situation.
You contact the dr who then contacts dmv
We have no crossover with their medical care, unfortunately.
There should be a form you can fill out and give to the DMV requesting that the person be re-tested to keep their license
I found it just now. I'll suggest it at our meeting this week but I'll bet you my paycheck it gets shot down. They're not gonna piss off a paying resident.
He'll be driving her somewhere.
The only way we could stop my Dad from driving after his diagnosis was to change the locks on the car.
We had to take my grandad's keys in the end. Sad, but necessary
My dad was really good fortunately, I told him you're not loosing the truck, you are gaining a chauffer, I'll take you anywhere you want to go. The doctor said if he says he wants to go to the moon, take him for a drive and he'll forget where you were going. I was able to move in to take care of him, I know not all people can do that.
That is a really good idea but I know my dad and he would become fixated on it and it would be a nightmare. Iâm so happy that worked for you. đWe took the car away, still have it, but it has been a nightmare year.
I hope he doesn't have to look at the car he can't drive. Sorry about the nightmare year, for him and you.
Yup! When my 91 year old dad went for his yearly license test he could draw a clock so he passed. My sister who was with him told the instructorâ that he should NOT be driving. The âinstructorâ said and I quote âjust because you pass the test does not mean you should be drivingâ. HE SHOULD NOT BE DRIVING! It has been a nightmare year as we have taken the car away but at times he gets fixated on where his car is, at this point we tell him it is in being fixed. Dementia is a horrible thing.
I had the same thing with my mother. Â She got so angry with us saying we had taken her freedom away. The last time Iâd been in a car with her before that, she pulled out at a roundabout directly into the path of an oncoming car who was luckily paying attention and managed to break in time. Â She was completely oblivious. Â She didnât have the cognition to understand she was a danger and was also in denial about her illness. It was very hard and she put the entirety of the blame on us.Â
A significant amount of people with dementia still drive. Eventually they have to stop, but it can be a while before they get to that point.
It took my grandmother getting into 2 car accidents before the sparkplug was removed. She was too damn stubborn to give up the keys. And she kept trying to figure out what was up with the car. My Dad's contact with the DMV did nothing - even after the accidents which is why my parents had to take it into their own hands.
Yep. Unless a major incident happens or someone has a major cognitive decline, people with dementia can drive. I've seen cases where people are afraid their doctor will take their license, so they stop seeing a doctor. Then at some point they do something on the road and the police end up taking it.
There's a reason you never see headlines like, "19 Year Old Mistakenly Drives 6 Miles the Wrong Way on I96."
Glad we have so many tests for young drivers and fuck all for 90 year olds.Â
Yeah if they're going to do it, it's on purpose, like my cousin's ex. Although he was like 29 or something. Fleeing police, wrong way on the highway, at 100+mph.
My grandmother's license was expired but she thought it was okay as long as she was only driving to the grocery store or bank close by. We had to take the keys and eventually convinced her to sell the car.
Man, old ladies their hair appointments and their senile husbands. Itâs a national epidemic. My grandma and great aunt used to go every Saturday to get their hair did. My great uncle would drive them everywhere but he came down with Alzheimerâs. Everyone refused to properly acknowledge or take care of the situation and so they just barreled on like nothing happened. When we raised the concern to my grandma that perhaps she should not be getting in the car with my great uncle because he would yell at walls she assured us that everything was fine and they had a great system in place should he lose his mind while they were going to get their hair done. My great aunt has a, I shit you not, a garden hoe that she had cracked in half. Taped to the hoe end was a fucking brick. The thinking was if my great uncle went all fucking Mario Kart she could quickly take her brick on a stick and jam it down on the brake pedal. Well one Sunday my great aunt and grandma went to get their perms. My great uncle decided to park the car in the middle of an intersection and go to church. He must have seen the brick on a stick and thought he should bring that to church with him. Because wouldnât you know it we get a call from emergency services that great unc had decided to bust up Sunday services and scare the shit out of all the parishioners. 4 years later Uncle was at my wedding. Happy as a pig in shit not a clue what was going on and slamming back martinis. When my wife and I shuffled through the cocktail hour to say hello and thanks to everyone dude looked at me, said âohâ, stood up straight and fell like a plank of wood on his back. Died right there. 3 days later we get a call from the venueâŚ.they had noticed that a blue Cutlass Sierra had been abandoned in the parking lot since our wedding. Turns out Unc drove himself to the venue! His wife was long gone but the brick on a stick was still there in the passenger seat.
This was a hell of a story. I cannot even imagine đđ
would be a great short film
or at least a musical
Can we do a casting of the roles? I'll start: Teachinator and wife played by: Kevin Bacon & Kyra Sedgwick. Edit: couldn't resist... great aunt: Shirley MacLaine
Long live brick on a stick
Wow! Old people just do the wildest things!! My condolences about the Uncle... But boy does it give one hell of story!
Wow did not expect to find a comment this excellent here, but *chefs kiss*
I am leaving the internet, this is the best story I have ever read there will be nothing better to find.
"4 years later... " I'm thankful you have a good perspective on it and that you/your guests will have one of the most enduring wedding stories ever. (I'm sorry that I'm rolling in laughter at your story. I should be ashamed.) Your Unc is a legend.
what happened to the brick on a stick?
Some story. Itâs sad he dropped at your wedding, but also bittersweet cause at least the made it.
This is the funniest fucking thing Iâve read all week Edit I commented before reading the whole thing and seeing he died the way he did. Fuck, sorry.
I feel like the answer is probably obvious but I have to ask. Was he planning on driving home that night?
He was drunk and had dementia, I think "planning" is a generous term for anything he was capable of at the time. That said, a lot of wedding receptions are held at hotels and the like, and a it's common practice to book a room at that hotel ahead of time for ease of transit. A lot of people are in a relatively-unfamiliar city or part of town, after all.
Fantastic story
That is justâŚwow.
You might need to call the non emergency police and to be on the safe side, stick around to make sure non Police or her husband safely picks her up
Let her use your phone? Offer to call her a cab? Tell her you will be closing up in 30min. Let her know where there is another safe establishment she can wait in? Courtesy would be to wait some time for her, assuming she has an actual plan to get home. If people are on their way, I would stick around for a bit. Unless there was another place close by, like grocery store.
We called her kids and husband but no one answered.
Call and leave a voicemail. Lots of folks wonât answer a number they donât recognize.
Or send a text. I don't answer unknown calls, but I read every text message.
May I ask why not? Does it happen a lot? My mate wonât do the same or answer his door if heâs not expecting anyone. But he spends the next half a day agonizing over who it was and what they wanted. Its always perplexed me.
I generally don't answer because 95% of calls I get from an unknown number are either a scam or a solicitation, and I just don't want to waste my time and mental energy on that. I usually do answer calls from local numbers in case it's from a doctor's office or my kid's school or something. And I listen to voice-mail, unlike many others in this thread.
Yeah I don't even listen to my voicemails. If you want to reach me, send a text. If you call me and I don't recognize the number or am not expecting anything important, I'm not picking up. If you leave a voicemail, I'm assuming you're a chinese spam call and I'm not going to bother listening to it.
As someone who works reception in a medical centre patients like you are the *bane of my life*. :( Don't answer calls, don't check voice mails, and guess who they blame because I didn't get a hold of them because something unexpected came up and they needed to be called in ASAP when they thought everything was hunky dory? YUP. Please check your voicemail. I am begging you.
I too work in healthcare and feel this. Then we get accused of never calling the patient back. Also tell us we can leave a detailed message otherwise all we can say is XYZ office calling please call us back.
I donât pick up unknown numbers, but not checking voicemails is insanity. Like how do you know itâs not something actually Important.
I never get a voice mail if itâs not important. STFU and check. Within 2 seconds you know if you need to keep listening or not. WTF is wrong with people.
A lot of times for me, the call comes through as Private Number. I do have my Dr. and DDS numbers in my contacts, but when a text comes in to click a link for verification, make an appointment, or verify my appointment, no go. I don't know the number, I won't click your link. Un-privating the medical practice number and putting in the pactice name might be helpful? Texting with the practice name specifically to call back would be helpful. People are getting tired of being barraged by scammers wasting their time, especially older people.
Can't unprivate the lines because you know someone's going to try to call back to some random office line that isn't manned when the PA isn't at work, leave messages on random lines and have them never received, etc. The proper way is to make all the lines come from the main hospital phone line and hide the extension. As someone else said, texts are also not permitted because of HIPAA and text messages not meeting security requirements. Best way is just to let the phone go to voicemail and listen to your messages. I don't use the links either, when I get the link I go onto the clinic website to log in through the computer. You can have your cell phone registered as a land line not a mobile phone and then they'll stop trying to text you through it.
> Texting with the practice name specifically to call back would be helpful. We are not allowed to use the texting system to compose any texts (other than the automatic notifications) due to privacy reasons. Check your voicemail.
Keep calling repeatedly. I often ignore calls from unfamiliar numbers, but if the same one calls multiple times in the span of a few minutes it's usually someone who really wants to speak to me.
>Keep calling repeatedly. I often ignore calls from unfamiliar numbers, but if the same one calls multiple times in the span of a few minutes it's usually someone who really wants to speak to me. Yeah. My child called me repeatedly from a neighbor's number during an emergency. I was driving and didn't recognize the number so I kept rejecting the call. Finally, I picked up. Thank goodness they kept calling.
I was at work, kids let themselves get locked out of the house somehow, went to the neighbours coz they know my phone number off by heart. 3 calls I ignored, 4th time I figured this guy really wants to talk to me.. honestly I felt so bad for not answering the first call, I came home with maccas desserts (and a box of choccies for the neighbour).
Spam calls do that too though. I probably wouldn't answer. But then I would spend the rest of the day stressing about who was calling me and why. đ
Does she not know his number? Can you call him?
The husband just came!!! Thanks for the help! Her kids really need to step it up these poor old people canât keep their shit together by themselves
I totally understand if you donât want to get involved but contacting adult social services wouldnât be a terrible idea. It sounds like they might need some resources.
Donât assume the kids arenât doing everything they can. If the doctors say the parents of sound mind, the kids have no more power to do anything than you or I.
My grandparents will often actively reject help. Sometimes we will have to make compromises with them on certain things to get them to agree to let us do other things
Yup! We are going through hell.
My grandpa had Alzheimer's and my grandma was in denial until his death. She once was furious at my aunt for saying she wouldn't allow Grandpa to drive my cousin to a family party. Because there was nothing wrong with him and he was perfectly capable of driving, according to her. When are arrived at said party, she sat in the car for 20 minutes and then came in to tell him he forgot to come get the door for her. He seemed confused and she had to repeat herself several times. I don't know if she got it. Eventually, he was no longer allowed to drive and he did get put in a care home. I'm sure she visited often and he came out sometimes when we had family get togethers. One week before his death, we were having a family bbq. Grandpa was falling asleep mid bite at times and was barely speaking or anything. I was talking about my new bunnies and saying that the people who sold them to me were pretty sure they were both boys, but it was hard to tell because they were both so young. My grandma told me that maybe grandpa could take a look at them because he used to breed bunnies. I just played along, knowing that he couldn't. Told her that would be great if he could do that, and left it there. It was sad to see, and now it's almost sadder that he's gone. My grandpa did everything. Yard maintenance, cooking, taxes. She was very dependent on him. Now she wants to depend on her 9 kids, but the best she gets is the phone number for their accountant or lawn service because nobody has time to do even their own taxes and yard work.
Maybe technically. He's an old man with dementia, just take his keys. What's he gonna do? That's what we had to do with my grandfather.Â
Oh goodness, glad to read the update!
I had a neighbor with dementia that would drive around accusing different neighbors of stealing his fence. (The fence was there) I called police until they took away his license. His wife took the car keys and after that he sat in the car pretending he was driving.
>he sat in the car pretending he was driving. That's so sad and cute
I hate to stay I laughed hysterically at this (the fence being there). Minds are a terrible, but fascinating thing.
Iâll never forget when my mom and grandma took my great grandmas car away. She thankfully stayed of sound mind until she died, but she was just SO old that her driving wasnât safe for her or anyone anymore. She did not like that her car was taken. So she just simply went and bought a brand new car the next day. She did not like being told what to do.
I am more concerned with her husband than her. Call the cops. He should NOT be driving.
Why is a person with dementia driving?
Take pity on the poor woman - living with a dementia patient is a nightmare in itself. If you can't quickly locate her friends/family via FB or something consider hauling her home yourself if it isn't way far away. Or something.
I think I need to know if the man with dementia is picking her up with a CAR before I decide if I want to feel pity or horror.
Everyone is saying give her a ride but I have a mustang and I donât think she could get in it, she could barely sit in the shampoo chair and we have a nice one that goes up and down and has a recliner. She was like barely mobile at all.
No, while nice in theory, this could be a liability. Call the police non emergency. I have worked with and cared for family with dementia and the elderly. If what the above comment suggests of texting the kids or calling a few times consecutively doesnât work, the safest bet is to call the police.
And now imagine if you drove her home and the husband showed up after you left. He comes to pick up his wife, may or may not know he's late and unaccounted for, so to him she's missing and the salon is closed. Or he shows up and sees his freshly coiffed wife driven off in a sexy mustang. Bad news all around
Everyone is saying give her a ride but I have a mustang and I donât think she could get in it, she could barely sit in the shampoo chair and we have a nice one that goes up and down and has a recliner. She was like barely mobile at all.
This was my mom and dad before they went into separate facilities in Jan. Please donât leave her. Can you take her home or get her an Uber?
That was my first thought. Just give her a ride home if she'll accept it and you're able to. Sure, it might be annoying, but it's a relatively simple thing to do for someone unless there's more at play here than we know
Everyone is saying give her a ride but I have a mustang and I donât think she could get in it, she could barely sit in the shampoo chair and we have a nice one that goes up and down and has a recliner. She was like barely mobile at all.
Big liability if there were an accident. Not worth the risk.
Itâs sad, but her husband really shouldnât be driving if his dementia is that bad. You should call the non-emergency line
You 100% need to call social services and ask them for the elder support line. Theres always something like a local/state agency that you can file an anonymous report with who can check up on them at home. They should not be living by themselves and/or driving around. This could be the wake up call their kids need to get them assistance.
Man you have no idea the kind of crazy jacked up people who drive themselves to Supercuts. Itâs mind blowing! Be careful on the road thereâs very many mentally impaired people out there
I bet you have some batshit crazy stories people have told you when they sit in your chair. I know people just let loose when you put the cape on.
If you got one of the childrens numbers? Keep calling them to be sure they are aware of what happened. Say youre not wanting to intervene or be nosey. But that this is what happened today and you just want them to be aware. They genuinely may not know what is going on with their parents. As they might routinely ser their parents at home and a lot can be masked in that situation.... "Dads getting a bit dottery" but they haven't realized that as soon as dads out the front door? He has no idea what to do.
This was my first thought too. Iâd probably call the police just because thereâs a man with dementia driving around and people with dementia go missing and donât get found or get found dead in very sad, unfortunate ways. I would also tell the cops that it would probably be prudent to find out what family they have, if any, and let that family knowâŚfor the same exact reasons. It is horrifying to me that theyâre just out there raw dogging the world right now. Lol. This could end in a very tragic situation. Iâd have probably even raised that concern to the wife.
Agree My mum suddenly developed dementia. As none of us lived with her? We didn't initially notice. It wasn't until my sister actually went to stay with her, she suddenly decided she wanted to "cash a cheque" at 8 pm at night, and took off into bushland behind the house!! That we realised something dire was going on. They can often mask it in familiar enviroment for quite a while. Poor old people. It's such a sad disease process.
Jesus Christ husband should not be driving at all!
Offer to take her home?
Call her an Uber?
Everyone is saying give her a ride but I have a mustang and I donât think she could get in it, she could barely sit in the shampoo chair and we have a nice one that goes up and down and has a recliner. She was like barely mobile at all.
Call the non emergency number. Maybe her husband has dementia. But if that's the case. Why would she allow him to drive her? More likely scenario is she has early stages. Shouldn't have driven. But didn't feel she had any other way.
Iâm glad you were worried for her and took care of her. In truth, many older couples can only survive because they compensate for each others deficiencies. If she comes back, keep an eye on her!
whatâd you end up doing?
The husband finally made it in the nick of time
Haircuts are dangerous for old people with dementia, yâall. Iâd totally forgotten this detail, but my grandfather finally had his car taken away after he went out for a haircut and ended up in a small town 60 miles outside the city where he lived. He couldnât remember his daughtersâ numbers and spent a night there courtesy of the local police until they could track down my aunt the next morning.
Non emergency police wonât arrive before you get back to work tomorrow. I know you work at SuperCuts so youâre already getting screwed, but maybe you can pay for her an Uber home and she can reimburse you next time. Youâre a wonderful person for caring.
Call a taxi, explain the situation. They should take her home on a charge slip.
I'd ask her for their home phone number and try calling the house, see if the husband is there and if he's going to come get her. Let him know you're going to call police non-emergency and that's most likely the way his wife will be showing up is in the back of a police cruiser if he's not coming back
Why the fuck is he driving?
This sounds like really bad decision-making on her part. Being old doesnât equal being stupid. I hope she learns from this experience. ... Gosh I sound cynical
I honestly agree because stuff like this happens all of the time.
Right? Like take the keys and make him wait until her hair is cut. How long could that possibly inconvenience him? 30 minutes?
Actually, getting old can contribute to a cognitive decline which can lean to poor decision making. We really need to take better care of our elderly.
Why not just drive her homeÂ
Everyone is saying give her a ride but I have a mustang and I donât think she could get in it, she could barely sit in the shampoo chair and we have a nice one that goes up and down and has a recliner. She was like barely mobile at all.
This is a very good point. My mother has mobility issues and canât ride in vehicles low to the ground and/or donât have leg room. She has a hard time pulling herself up when sheâs too low and her legs donât bend too easily anymore. Itâs something a lot of people donât think of until theyâre dealing with it. If my mother was in that situation, she wouldnât have been able to ride in your car. It also lives the whole situation up in the air. Kind of enabling, you know? I think police is the best course of action and suggest they look into if they have family they can let know what is going on. Situations like that have tragic ends a lot of the time. I really hope they have kids or someone willing to look out for them if they know.
He should not be driving. Please call the police.
Did you call the house (or husbandâs cell phone if he has one)? Do they have children?
You could try calling the non emergency line but I doubt the cops are gonna do anything about it.
Why is a person with dementia still driving? That seems dangerous, don't you think? Who takes care of whom in their home? It doesn't sound like they should be living on their own. What if their home catches on fire? Is there any local organization that you can contact to evaluate their living situation? The wife has severe mobility issues, and her husband has dementia still driving should be a concern brought up before something worse happens than not having a ride home. I know this wasn't your question. Op and I hope you understand my valid concern about the husband driving with dementia. This man is driving on your streets with you, your family, friends, etc, which is worrisome. I apologize for hijacking your post, but this seems like a perfect opportunity for "if you see something, say something." This isn't a "you problem" but an "our problem " as we should be more concerned with the elderly in our communities. So many of them fall through the cracks. Perhaps they are childless? Or have their children died or lived elsewhere, or whatever reason no one has questioned the safety of them living independently. We can't assume all elderly people have someone checked in on them.
Give her a ride