My mother is 68 and has the onset of dementia, we noticed a year ago and had her check by her doctor. It was not until like three months ago when talking with the doctor that he had expressed a concern. He had talked to my father but he says "she is okay" she is just forgetful sometimes. Just recently he himself realized after many months of denial he has started to see changes. She has had a sleeping pattern change has her days and night confused. She still continues to drive I have stressed to those her live with her she should never travel alone even to the store. I have even talked to mom about dementia and explain some of things she might be feeling she has agreed on a lot of them.
My concern is her driving she could say she going to store and end up who knows were. I had seen a silver alert advertisement on tv. I would like to try and find out how to get information so I can look into putting something into place before she just gets in her car and ends up missing it is a fear I have. She has always been independent and just does her thing. She has a cell phone but most of time forgets to turn it on. I have just started going to doctors with her. so if anyone could even contact me about silver in our area I would appreciate it.
As the others have said, getting lost is not the only possible outcome of her continued driving and the other possibilities are much more dire. You need to find a way to get her off the road.
Losing his driver's license was the worse thing that happened to my husband (in his opinion) during his 10-year dementia journey. But if he had continued driving and killed someone I can't imagine how either of us could have lived with that the rest of our lives.
This isn't something you can "wait and see" about. Persons with dementia SHOULD NOT BE DRIVING.
If you are worried about her driving and getting lost, it's already time to be worried about her driving at all! Someone only gets lost because they can't remember. I'm sorry to tell you, that goes hand in hand with not remembering how to drive, rules of the road, respecting traffic signals and pedestrians in crosswalk for parking lots, etc., not to mention that you're in New York with winter road conditions to deal with.
Because driving is so closely linked to independence, taking the driving privilege away from your parent is one of the hardest things you will ever do.
But do it you must, and BEFORE she INJURES or KILLS some innocent person or pet, or even herself!!!
She only travels locally, so I also provided her info and my contact info plus a recent picture to the local police dept. I live long distance so I wanted to make sure they had her info on file.
The GPS mentioned above is a good idea. There are devices that can be put on phones and cars to track a person also --similar to what you can install for teen drivers. You can have bracelets made (drugstore) that lists info about the person if she will wear it. I understand that you can have them be permanent bracelet that they can't remove...but she might not want that or agree to wear it.
A Silver Alert is issued when someone is missing, so this isn't likely what you need now (and hopefully never will). However, if you mother does go missing, call you local police department and see if they can issue a Silver Alert.
You might want to look into special shoes with a GPS chip attached or embedded. There are also bracelets and other jewelry that carry a GPS chip that can track you mother's location.
This service is by subscription, so it's not free, but it can help keep track of someone who may wander or become lost. I'd suggest that you discuss this with your dad and see if he thinks this is right for your mother. If so, there are companies on the Internet that carry these products. You should compare plans to make sure you find a qualified company and a decent rate.
It's good of you to be concerned!
Carol