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Mom is 87, living independently near Ocala, Floriida. Her deteriorating short-term memory is making independent living unlikely to continue much longer. In the short term, my sister and two brothers and I have specific concern with her driving. She drives a few times a week, a few miles on a familiar route to church and the grocery store that she has been driving for many, many years. Yet, she has had a couple of recent incidents where she got lost. Fortunately, these were resolved without any serious problems, but we have determined it is time for her to give up driving. We know she will be resistant to the idea, so we are trying to layout a plan, probably combination of delivery services to handle groceries and restaurant orders, and a ride service for things like medical appointments.
We want to have this in place before we have the talk with Mom about giving up the car. We really are struggling to find the car service in her area, other than Uber or Lyft which rely on cell phones and apps which she will not be able to use. Please reply if you have thoughts, suggestions, recommendations. I should add that none of us live close to Mom, we are each at least a day’s drive, or a flight away. Thanks.

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As far as getting to and from church...I am sure of you called her church they would have members willing to drive her.
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chossois Jan 2022
Thanks. I will try that.
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Where I live the county ride service will NOT take people with memory or cognitive impairment unaccompanied. Think about it: you are trusting your memory-impaired mother to ride with a total stranger, to an appointment where she will walk into the building by herself (because they won't take her in and therefore have responsibility for her) and hope that she'll remember what suite and why she's even there, and remember the outcome of the appointment or errand afterwards, and then remember how she got there and how to get home.

With my 2 elderly aunts in FL (and me in MN) I arranged for other family, friends, neighbors and church acquaintances to bring and return her to appointments. I gave them gift cards for gas and restaurants so that they could take them out to lunch after the appointments. This took the immediate sting out of losing their license. I could only keep this up for a while until I put caregiving in place. It required management and coordination but worked well in the short term and they really enjoyed it.

Here in MN my former neighbor (who is now in her mid-90s but has all her faculties) has her son in CO arrange for Uber to transport her BUT she has her own mobile phone and knows how to use it and he always makes sure there is someone at each end of the trip to make sure she got in the vehicle and then she had to call him when she arrived home.

It is not moral or ethical to make a ride service responsible for someone with cognitive impairment unless that is a stated part of their service. It is also dangerous and personally I would not do it. Even when my MIL needed a medical transport here in MN we had to accompany her. It may be time to move your mom closer to one of you, since her independence is diminishing anyway, why wait for a full-on crisis and then have to move her under duress?
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chossois Jan 2022
Thanks for your thoughts on this. You point is valid that the problem goes beyond just getting her there and back. I will discuss your idea of relying on friends, neighbors, church acquaintances but unfortunately, she has no family in the area, and she is not particularly social or friendly, so she has not developed that network of friends. She knows no one at the church except for the priest. I have gone to mass with her and observed how she enters and exits without talking with anyone, and sits where she can be alone. The neighbors have been somewhat helpful, but there are limits to what they can or will do, most of them being nearly as old as her. Also, we have offered to have her live with use, and continue to do so, but she will not hear it. She is determined to stay in her house. We have obtained POA after some difficulty. We would like not to have to force a solution against her will, but her health and safety may dictate that. We are not waiting for a crisis: We are trying to take actions to prevent a crisis. These are difficult problems, compounded by distance and circumstances. We need to find short-term answers while we make plans for care either in her home or in a facility.
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Thanks. There is a county service, and there may be some others. We'll look further into this.
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Contact the Florida department of transportation.

They can tell you if they have a paratransit program and send an application.

In my city, the bus is available with 24 hour notice and you can buy cab vouchers for a fixed price within so many miles.
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Uber has a program for seniors called uber health where they dont need to use the app or online to get rides when needed. Worth checking out.
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chossois Jan 2022
Thanks! I was not aware of Uber Health. I am reading the information on their site now. It looks promising.
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She must have an office of aging? They usually have Senior bussing.

If your Mom gets lost, then she probably can no longer live alone. I would start looking for a nice Assisted Living that provides transportation. She will get 3 meals a day with snacks. Care according to her needs. She will be safe. Please don't wait till she has a car accident or an accident in her home. My MIL lived below Ocala and and Uncle in Ocala. The one thing he did right was hire a caregiver. My MIL was too stubborn to admit she needed help. Lived too far from her sons for any of us to help. She wouldn't live near us.

If your Mom has Dementia, it will be very hard for her to learn new things. If she can't remember how to get home, what makes you think she will remember to call a transport company to drive her somewhere. The usually need to know in advance about appts.
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chossois Jan 2022
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, JoAnn. We are looking into Assisted Living, but that will take some time and we need to get her to stop driving in the interim. She does have the initial signs of Dementia, her basic problem is with short-term memory. Our plan was to arrange the rides for her. At least one of us speaks with her each day, and we make her medical appointments for her as well. We can arrange the rides for her.
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Chossois, there have been several threads here addressing the issue of transportation for seniors.   Click on the circle with a tail, to the left of your avatar on the blue segueing to green bar at the top of the page.   Then search on "transportation" .

These are hits I got, but you can vary the parameters, such as transportation in your mother's area" and perhaps get more precise suggestions.

https://www.agingcare.com/search?term=transportation

Generally speaking, you can contact the local transit service and determine whether it has "small bus", or "door to door" service.    Some Senior Centers contract with a larger transit service and provide shopping and medical transport for their members.

Small bus service in my area used to be about $2 a ride, probably up to around $5 now given that prices are rising  quickly in my area.  

Small bus services have vans with lift ramps if a wheelchair is involved.

You're wise to address this issue before presenting it to your mother.   I would also start providing transit for her when you're in the area, so that she can start becoming accustomed to driving with others.    Treat her afterwards (we stopped for Dairy Queens) so she begins to see it as a positive experience.
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chossois Jan 2022
Thanks for all the info and recommendations. I will follow your instructions to find relevant existing threads. I did make initial inquiries with the county services and will be pursuing that further. And yes, we have agreed on the very thing you said about having her use the transportation services when we are there. My two brothers plan to visit in a few weeks and we hope to have that set-up for when they are there.
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Google "Senior transportation services Ocala, FL." There are tons of hits.
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chossois Jan 2022
Thanks! That is so simple, I am embarrassed to say I didn't think to do it.
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Does her community have something like a Dial-A-Ride service? In my 96 year old aunt's town she can call a day ahead to get a ride to the doctor or hairdresser in her wheelchair with caregiver along for the ride. I remember some years ago that she wasn't too happy when the price doubled to 50 cents per trip.
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chossois Jan 2022
Thanks for your reply. Unfortunately, there is no community ride service. That would have been nice.
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