{"id":4611,"date":"2024-04-19T14:29:29","date_gmt":"2024-04-19T14:29:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=4611"},"modified":"2024-04-19T15:29:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-19T15:29:21","slug":"how-to-tell-an-older-person-its-time-to-stop-driving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=4611","title":{"rendered":"How to Tell an Older Person It\u2019s Time to Stop Driving"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The \u201ccar key conversation\u201d can be painful for families to navigate. Experts say there are ways to have it with empathy and care.<\/p>\n

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Sherrie Waugh has been yelled at, insulted and wept upon in the course of her job administering driving tests. Typically these extreme reactions happen when she is forced to render an upsetting verdict: It\u2019s time to hang up the car keys.<\/p>\n

Ms. Waugh, a certified driving rehabilitation specialist with The Brain Center, a private neuropsychology practice in Indiana, often works with older drivers, putting them through an assessment that measures things like visual skills, reaction time and processing speed.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had one gentleman, who had early onset dementia, who was just sitting here crying,\u201d Ms. Waugh said. \u201cHis wife was out in the car and she was crying. And we all came back, and we were all crying. Because it\u2019s so hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

Decisions about when an older person (or someone whose physical or mental circumstances make operating a vehicle dangerous) should stop driving are often agonizing. They can rock the driver\u2019s sense of independence and identity, and add to the responsibilities that many family caregivers shoulder.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s a major, major loss for older people,\u201d said Lauren Massimo, an assistant professor at Penn Nursing. \u201cIt\u2019s been described to me as dehumanizing.\u201d<\/p>\n

But it is important to raise concerns as soon as you have them, experts said, and there are ways to make the car key conversation less painful for older drivers and their loved ones.<\/p>\n

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The \u201ccar key conversation\u201d can be painful for families to navigate. Experts say there are ways to have it with empathy and care.Sherrie Waugh has been yelled at, insulted and wept upon in the course of her job administering driving tests. Typically these extreme reactions happen when she is forced to render an upsetting verdict: It\u2019s time to hang up the car keys.Ms. Waugh, a certified driving rehabilitation specialist with The Brain Center, a private neuropsychology practice in Indiana, often works with older drivers, putting them through an assessment that measures things like visual skills, reaction time and processing speed.\u201cI had one gentleman, who had early onset dementia, who was just sitting here crying,\u201d Ms. Waugh said. \u201cHis wife was out in the car and she was crying. And we all came back, and we were all crying. Because it\u2019s so hard.\u201dDecisions about when an older person (or someone whose physical or mental circumstances make operating a vehicle dangerous) should stop driving are often agonizing. They can rock the driver\u2019s sense of independence and identity, and add to the responsibilities that many family caregivers shoulder.\u201cIt\u2019s a major, major loss for older people,\u201d said Lauren Massimo, an assistant professor at Penn Nursing. \u201cIt\u2019s been described to me as dehumanizing.\u201dBut it is important to raise concerns as soon as you have them, experts said, and there are ways to make the car key conversation less painful for older drivers and their loved ones.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4613,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4614,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4611\/revisions\/4614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}