Aging parents (9)
- Caregiving: Tips for long-distance caregivers
- Caregiver depression: Prevention counts
- Caring for the elderly: Dealing with resistance
- see all in Aging parents
Alzheimer's caregiver (23)
- Alzheimer's: Consider options for long term care
- Alzheimer's: Tips to make holidays more enjoyable
- Alzheimer's: Dealing with family conflict
- see all in Alzheimer's caregiver
Free
E-newsletter
Subscribe to Housecall
Our weekly general interest
e-newsletter keeps you up to date
on a wide variety of health topics.
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Alzheimer's: When to stop driving
If your loved one has Alzheimer's, he or she may not be safe on the road. Explain the risks — then provide other ways to get around.
By Mayo Clinic staffDriving is a powerful symbol of competence and independence, besides being a routine part of adult life. But the focused concentration and quick reaction time needed for safe driving tend to decline with age. Alzheimer's disease accelerates this process dramatically. If you're caring for a loved one who has Alzheimer's, you may need to limit your loved one's driving — or stop his or her driving completely.
More than memory problems
Dimmed short-term memory makes it easy for a driver who has Alzheimer's to get lost, even in familiar territory. Perhaps more dangerous, however, is a decline in the ability to judge distances and predict upcoming traffic problems. A driver who has Alzheimer's may also have trouble prioritizing visual cues. An irrelevant sight, such as a dog jumping behind a fence, may distract the driver from important cues — such as brake lights or traffic signs.
When to stop driving
Opinions vary on whether driving should be allowed at all after an Alzheimer's diagnosis. For some people, it may be easier to give up the wheel early on, when they can still grasp the potential hazards. On the other hand, people in the early stages of the disease may be able to safely limit their driving to short daytime trips in familiar surroundings.
If your loved one continues to drive, pay attention to warning signs of unsafe driving, such as:
- Difficulty navigating to familiar places, changing lanes or making turns
- Confusing the brake and gas pedals
- Failing to observe traffic signals
- Making slow or poor decisions
- Hitting the curb while driving
- Driving at an inappropriate speed
- Becoming angry or confused while driving
If you're not sure whether it's safe for your loved one to drive, ask yourself whether you feel safe riding in a vehicle driven by the person who has Alzheimer's — or if you'd feel safe having your loved one drive your children or others. If the answer is no, then you know it's time for him or her to retire from driving.
Next page(1 of 2)
- Driving. Alzheimer's Association. http://www.alz.org/national/documents/topicsheet_driving.pdf. Accessed May 6, 2010.
- Martin AJ, et al. Driving assessment for maintaining mobility and safety in drivers with dementia. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2009:CD006222. http://www2.cochrane.org/reviews/en/ab006222.html. Accessed May 6, 2010.
- Snyder CH. Dementia and driving: Autonomy versus safety. Journal of the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners. 2005;17:393.
- Ott BR, et al. A longitudinal study of drivers with Alzheimer disease. Neurology. 2008;70:1171.
- Iverson DJ, et al. Practice parameter update: Evaluation and management of driving risk in dementia. Neurology. 2010;74:1316.
Find Mayo Clinic on