When do you take the keys away?

[Siwsan]

4. It's a touchy thing.

My Mom had a couple of minor fender benders, that were never "her fault". She was in her early 80's. When we asked her questions about the accidents, she became inappropriately angry. Most of the time she blamed the sun being in her eyes. Then she started insisting that we needed to stop accusing her of having Alzheimer's.

She LOVED to drive. She could make a day out of grocery shopping - going from store to store to find her bargains. It was incredibly difficult dealing with her continuing anger, after we took the keys away, but it was becoming very apparent it wasn't just her declining reflexes that were causing the problem. She constantly threatened to call the police and tell them we stole her car keys.

My advice is for people to avoid rationalizing away even little behavioral changes. We were lucky that these two fender benders, in quick succession, didn't result in any injuries.