How can I help my mother deal with her pain and keep her from driving?
My mother is having mild dementia and frequent falls. Her problems are complicated by taking too many pain pills (Vicodin and Darvocet). She has had the pain pill problem for many years. She stays in bed for weeks at a time and thus is very weak when she does get up. She still insists on driving. She had an accident three weeks ago and her car is in the shop. How can I keep her from driving? She has no business driving at all considering everything! Help!
Expert Answer
This is where you need to enlist the help of the physician who is providing the prescriptions. Your mother's mild dementia and frequent falls can certainly be made worse by her medications. Most pain pills have caution labels for driving due to their sedative side effects. In an older person with multiple medications and medical problems, the side effects can be exaggerated.
I recommend that you talk with your mother and see if you can go to her next medical appointment with her. Give the physician a heads up about your driving concerns and her recent accident. You should ask the physician if her pain can be controlled with medication that has fewer side effects. It's in the physician's best interest to address this issue, as he could potentially be held liable if he knows that your mother is driving while taking these medications.
If you strongly believe your mother is putting herself and others at risk and she refuses to stop driving, I would recommend that you or her physician contact your state DMV to report her. You should be aware that some states do not have anonymous reporting so she could ultimately find out who reported her (see the American Medical Association's Physician's Guide to Assessing and Counseling Older Drivers, Chapter 8). See also Caring.com's calculator, State by State Driving Laws for the Elderly.
Given her diagnosis of mild dementia, retiring from driving is probably in her near future, so you should begin talking to her about alternative transportation options. You can help make this transition easier by routinely offering to take her grocery shopping, to medical appointments, and on other outings.